My Melody

"The Lord is my Strength and my Song and He has become my Salvation." Exodus 15:2

Music is definitely a favorite way for God’s spirit to speak to my heart.  He can lift my spirits or speak to whatever I am needing in that moment.  Growing up as a pastor’s kid I spent a lot of time at church and a lot of time with my face in a hymnal.  All the songs I would follow along to with pure apathy or giggle through with my best friend wondering what kind of crazy words these were!  Today the most amazing things happen with those hymns.  If I hear these songs I find myself singing along and knowing all of the words that I didn’t even realize I knew.  And what’s better, they hold such new life and meaning for me that many times they stop me dead in my tracks and the tears flow with thankfulness for what God has done in my life. 

The other day this song just popped into my head from nowhere, but to me it is not nowhere!  To me it is a message from God’s heart to mine and He is speaking to me.  This happens often and I do not even consciously choose to remember and sing a song, but will spontaneously bust out in a song that to some may seem hokey, but I can’t tell you how many times fits exactly what I need to hear. 

The words to this song were-

“Singing I go along life’s road, praising the Lord, praising the Lord.

  Singing I go along life’s road, for Jesus has lifted my load.”

For some reason this song centered me again in truth.  My spirit was reminded of my load that was lifted.  And what load is that?  Certainly not my list of trials that I would hope He would fix yesterday, but the load of trying to do it alone without Him for a decent chunk of my life and all the shame and emptiness and grief that comes along with that!  This perspective makes me switch gears and enter into a spirit of thankfulness regardless of my circumstance because the load He has lifted and what He has given me in His friendship and love, nothing and no one can take from me.

“Jesus paid it all, all to Him I owe.  Sin had left a crimson stain, He washed it white as snow.  Oh praise the One who paid my debt and raised this life up from the dead. “

And He does this not just in hymns, but in many songs, and not just in songs, but with verses, and not just with verses but through nature……Left and right He is belting out His love for us.  God, give us eyes to see and ears to hear this Love.