Lyrics Page
Labor Of Love
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Sep 30, 2026 updated
Songs of the Season album
Verified editorial review
Song Meaning
Randy Travis strips the nativity of its usual soft-focus imagery — 'it was not a silent night, there was blood on the ground,' 'the stable was not clean and the cobblestones were cold' — and tells the story as an actual, physically difficult birth rather than a peaceful tableau. 'Little Mary full of grace with tears upon her face had no mother's hand to hold' names a specific, human loneliness inside the most famous birth in history.
'He was the maker of the moon' echoes Colossians 1:16's claim that 'all things' were created through Christ, sung here as a quiet irony — the infant Mary is laboring to deliver is also the one who made the physical world around the stable. 'He was the Author of the Faith that could make the mountains move' pulls directly from Hebrews 12:2's description of Jesus as 'the author and perfecter of faith,' and the title's own phrase, 'a labor of love,' refuses to let either word — the physical labor or the love behind it — stand alone.
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 alleyway 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 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 by her side, callused hands and weary eyes
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
But 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 tears on her face
It was a labor of love
It was not a silent night, on the streets of David's town