Come into his presence with singing! Psalm 100:2
The first hymn I ever sang was “Jesus Loves the Little Children.” Along with every child in the rainbow-colored family of God, I knew that I belonged.
The passing of each season was marked in holy song. Living in Hawaii, I had never seen a snowflake or a stalk of wheat; yet how I loved God for sending “the snow in winter, the warmth to swell the grain.” In a sun-drenched December, I blessed “the little Lord Jesus asleep on the hay.”
“Morning has broken,” I sang to greet the spring. When summer decked the trees bordering my church with a riot of red plumeria blossoms, I knew indeed that “this is my Father’s world.”
In my twenties, the hymn-singing stopped; I lost my faith for a time. So now the familiar songs are tinged with a deeper meaning, because embracing my faith has made me hear poignant notes in the old music, like rich bass tones of an ancient organ.
If you have fallen away from God, music—like prayer—can put your life in tune again. Come back to God on the wings of song.
