Trading My Sorrows

Hillsong Worship's “Trading My Sorrows” is an exchange song, built on the repeated lines “I'm trading my sorrows, I'm trading my shame, I'm laying them down for the joy of the Lord.” The second verse extends the trade to “sickness” and “pain,” and each offer is answered by the congregation with “Yes Lord, yes Lord, yes, yes Lord,” which makes the song something people say together and not only sing.

The later section is a run of paired statements about hardship: “I'm pressed, but not crushed, persecuted, not abandoned, struck down, but not destroyed.” It then claims, “I'm blessed beyond the curse, for His promise will endure.” The closing lines turn to joy as a source of power and a matter of timing, “that His joy's gonna be my strength” and “though the sorrow may last for the night, His joy comes with the morning.” The responses return at the end, so the song finishes in agreement.

The pressed-but-not-crushed list is 2 Corinthians 4:8-9. The joy that strengthens is Nehemiah 8:10, and joy arriving in the morning is Psalm 30:5. Exchanging mourning for gladness fits Isaiah 61:3.