I'm so excited! My good friend Kathi-Ann graciously heeded the call I posted a few weeks ago for a guest poster while I worked on the Bible Study. I'm so glad she did. I think she did a wonderful job... enough of my blabbing. Here is Kathi-Ann...
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I’ve never done this guest posting thing before, so I’m not sure how to start out. I guess I can share a little bit about myself. I’m a single mother of two (Bud, 8 and Boo, 4) and a student. I’m a year (or so) away from my bachelors in psychology. I’ve got two blogs, one (for lack of a better word) is a cooking blog, and the other was inspired by Kelly and is a religious blog. My religious background, I don’t know how different I am from Kelly’s normal readership, but I’m LDS. Oh, and I love to sing. And that is what I’ve elected to write about.
There’s a scripture in my church, something that almost everyone knows, certainly by the time they are out of high school. To paraphrase “A song of the righteous is a prayer unto me” and church is always full of songs. OK, so most of the people there are picking out the melody and barley hitting the right notes, but you can still fell the spirit.
Kids sing all the time, including mine. They love it. They spend half an hour (give or take) on Sunday just learning songs and the meanings behind them. My kids learn a lot of songs that I knew when I was a kid and I love to sing with them. One of them is just a simple song about reading the scriptures, and recently my daughter (the 4 year old) has been singing it. I love that song, I have since I started singing it when I was a kid.
It’s a lovely song to have in your head. The tune is catchy and the message is beautiful.
I love to read the Holy Scriptures, And, every time I do, I feel the Spirit start to grow within my heart— A testimony that they’re true. Search, ponder, and pray Are the things that I must do. The Spirit will guide, and, deep inside, I’ll know the scriptures are true. So, prayerfully I’ll read the scriptures Each day my whole life through. I’ll come to understand. I’ll heed the Lord’s command And live as he would have me do. Search, ponder, and pray Are the things that I must do. The Spirit will guide, and, deep inside, I’ll know the scriptures are true. “Search, Ponder, and Pray” Jaclyn Thomas Milne and Carol Baker Black
My son doesn’t like to admit it, but he loves the songs to, and when Boo and I are singing he’ll join in…until I look at him, then he pretends that he’s annoyed.
There is one more thing I’d like to share. I’m in a community choir in the town I live, unique I think, in that we don’t sing religious pieces to show off our skill, but we sing them to bring others closer to Christ.
This is us at our practice tonight (doesn’t my cell phone take amazing pictures). Our director (the guy standing in front…it’s kind of hard to tell) loves to have us sing spirituals. You know, like traditional gospel music like you’d find in the south. I think this is hilarious. I think, in the 200 some odd people we’ve got in the choir, two of them have some sort of rhythm to them. And those people are the pianist and the director. They try but we are about the sorriest bunch of white people you’ve ever seen trying to sing songs like “Go Down Moses” and “Goin’ Up to Glory”. Our attempts are usually laughable at best, but on the night of our concerts something amazing happens.
No, we don’t manage to pull out of ourselves some as yet unknown ability to sing the music the way it was intended. We are still just a bunch of uncoordinated southern Utahans’ who don’t seem to know any better. But as we stand on that stage, singing about trying to get to the Promised Land and trying to find God there’s a transformation.
It’s no longer about if we can sing the music as it was written, or as another choir would sing, it’s about God and spreading the message of love and joy that He shares with all of us.
As I was standing at practice tonight, in a hall as old as our town with a broken air conditioner in 108 degree weather, I started to cry. I could feel the spirit surrounding us. It wasn’t even a concert and He was there with us.
The song we were singing was “On Jordan’s Story Banks” (arranged by Howard Helvey) and the line…well, it wasn’t just one. It was the whole thing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-zksaadkd4
Just the whole song, just…I don’t know how to adequately explain the feeling I get when I sing this song. The choir in the above video sings it at a faster clip than we do. My director takes it at a flowing place, the transitions are harder…not the right word, but it works, and the sprit that comes from it is amazing.
I know that I’m going to ‘go home’ one day and that I am sharing that message.
So, there was a point to this long post that Kelly has been gracious enough to let me share with you all, and that is to sing. Always.
Keep a song in our heart and he will always be with you. Another song that I sang when I was a child was “Hum Your Favorite Hymn” and basically said that if you ever have to chase away bad thoughts that you should just think of your favorite hymn. I’ll be honest, I still do this today. Sometimes it’s just “Hum Your Favorite Hymn” sometimes it’s a favorite hymn or something that we’re singing in choir, but it is most effective.
Hum... still rambling. Just one last thing, always sing. Even to yourself. Keep those songs going around in your head through the day and you will always feel closer to
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Thank you, Kathi-Ann so much for that :) I really enjoyed it. I appreciate it :)
Please visit Kathi-Ann's blogs at http://www.dothisinremembranceofme.wordpress.com/ and http://www.studentmamacook.wordpress.com/
(Linked with Women Living Well Wednesday )