My Heart Sings!

My children know that I am overflowing with joy when I say “my heart is singing”. Whether it be the mastery of letter or number recognition or hearing peaceful play among my boys, I can find that my heart is singing out with thanksgiving to God. Music has always played an active part in my life between playing the flute in my high school years to the constant singing that I’ve done since I was much younger. We all have gifts that God has given us and my gift for singing has brought me delight and peace over the years. When I am able I will sing out loud as if no one else is listening and I find that I am truly communing with God. There is something about this practice that brings me to tears as I connect with my Savior.


Every night we sing as a family during our family worship time taking turns to pick out a favorite hymn or praise song. Some songs are upbeat and we are clapping and other songs cause us to be more reflective and concentrative on the words that we are singing. We have borrowed a couple of hymnals from our church and we have several Wee Sing Bible Song books and other praise music books that have provided us with endless selections. Here’s our current list of favorites:

Zachary— “In the Sweet By and By”
Jenn—“Be Thou My Vision" and "I’d Rather Have Jesus”
Madison— “Holy, Holy, Holy” and “Isn’t He Wonderful”
Jonathan— “I Will Sing Unto the Lord”
Brad—“A Christian Home” and “How Great Thou Art”

After several years of attending church services that have only sung modern praise music and recently being reintroduced to the “old” hymns, we have found that we are tremendously blessed to return to these. I am not one to jump on the bandwagon to battle out contemporary Christian music versus traditional Christian music, but I will share that I find it sad that so many in my generation have lost touch with the old hymns. I even had a conversation not too long ago with a friend that was searching for a church home and was investigating web sites and immediately dismissed any churches that offered traditional services because they wanted a cutting edge church experience. How disheartening it was for me to hear my friend abandon the old hymns that have been passed down from one generation to another in favor of songs that are often shallow theologically and tend to cater to our own emotions than to glorifying God.

Many of our children have never and will never sing a hymn of old which share deep spiritual truths. So, what can we do to preserve this heritage? First, find a biblically-sound church that offers a traditional or blended service and attend. Many of our former churches offered a traditional service but we found ourselves to be isolated as a younger family amongst an older generation. There is a wealth of wisdom that could be had if churches could integrate the different generations together. Unfortunately, music in church has shifted from a means to praise God corporately to a concert event where we find a church because we like the praise team. Personally, I find that the simple style of hymns prevent the temptation to get wrapped up in the tempo or tune of the song and my worship is more authentic. Again, I am not attacking all modern praise music, but I have observed a tendency to dumb down the message theologically, focus on the entertainment value of the music, and glorify the artist more than God. I haven’t seen many posters on the wall for Stuart K. Hine (composer for How Great Thou Art) but I have heard Top Ten Countdowns and Christian radio and seen many teens (and adults) screaming out with desperation to get the autograph of a contemporary artist. The praise is misplaced.

Another way is to sing these songs in your own home. No one in our home plays the piano (yet) so I use my music sight-reading skill and dig back to my childhood memories of hymns being sung in church to remember the songs from our borrowed hymnals. I have also discovered a great website that has thousands of songs with differing genres to listen to: http://www.hymnal.net/ I encourage you to give it a try and may your heart sing today!