Lyrics Page
Labor Of Love
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Sep 26, 2026 updated
Home for the Holidays album
Verified editorial review
Song Meaning
Point of Grace strip away the comfort most Christmas songs assume and describe the actual scene instead: "it was not a silent night, there was blood on the ground... the stable was not clean, and the cobblestones were cold." The correction to a familiar carol title is the whole point — this wasn't peaceful, it was labor.
Mary gets named specifically rather than left as a background figure: "little Mary full of grace, with the tears upon her face, had no mother's hand to hold." Joseph's role is just as physical — "callused hands and weary eyes... he held her and he prayed" — two exhausted people doing something neither one had done before.
Luke's account of Mary wrapping the baby in cloths and laying him in a manger because there was no room in the inn gives the song its bare, unglamorous setting, and Isaiah's prophecy of a virgin bearing a son named Immanuel sits behind the child Joseph prays over. The refrain's insistence — "it was a labor of pain... it was a labor of love" — refuses to let either half of that sentence cancel the other out.
Lyrics Verified by Editorial Team
It was not a silent night
There was blood on the ground
You could hear a woman cry
In the alleyways that night
On the streets of David's town
And the stable was not clean
And the cobblestones were cold
And little Mary full of grace
With the tears upon her face
Had no mother's hand to hold
It was a labor of pain
It was a cold sky above
But for the girl on the ground in the dark
With every beat of her beautiful heart
It was a labor of love
Noble Joseph at her side
Callused hands and weary eyes
There were no midwives to be found
On the streets of David's town
In the middle of the night
So he held her and he prayed
Shafts of moonlight on his face
For the baby in her womb
He was the maker of the moon
He was the author of the faith
That could make the mountains move
It was a labor of pain
It was a cold sky above
But for the girl on the ground in the dark
With every beat of her beautiful heart
It was a labor of love
For little Mary full of grace
With the tears upon her face
It was a labor of love
It was not a silent night
On the streets of David's town