Beloved Music
I play piano and often sing in my videos because singing is as natural to the flow of conversation as breathing, but it certainly wasn’t always that way. As a girl, I made up stories on the piano, begged for piano lessons, and sang everywhere I went without realizing it. In high school, someone saw my gift for music and used it to isolate and control me. He told me my gift was from God, prayed with me, and used to tell me that only he could understand the weight of my genius and demands of my gift. He made sure I was in all of his choirs, helping to run rehearsals, and that my free time was spent in private lessons with him. He sexually abused me from the time I was thirteen until I was twenty that was the entirety of my adolescence. For nearly a decade afterward, I was unable to play piano or sing. When I tried to sing, I would choke, and touching the piano was like touching a lightning rod of painful memories.
On my twenty ninth birthday, I decided to give a concert. I didn’t know if I would be able to get through even the first song. Sometimes my memories interrupted and I would freeze, and other times I’d find myself playing in a key different than what was written with no way to return to the score. The only way I could prepare for the concert was to pray. It was my first experience relying on the Lord in a personal and intimate way. I learned His nature through the way He sat with me in silent practice rooms. The God who spoke the world into existence understands there are some things for which there are no words. Music proves that deep calls unto deep, His Spirit to ours and back again. He showed me the importance of small things, the slowing down of notes to practice scales, build strength and trust, one prayer, one note at a time. A few years after the concert, I accepted my friends’ invitation to church. I somehow got separated from them and ended up sitting by myself as the entire room full of people stood to worship God. They sang from their hearts, weeping, shouting, for nearly an hour. I was so moved I couldn’t even stand; I just sat crying and let their singing wash over me. I got my song back in that church of warriors who had been saved from homelessness, addiction, a life of despair by the same Savior who rescued me. I pray the musical devotionals and songs shared on my YouTube channel that are shared on this page will bless you with the hope that the Lord can restore what the enemy takes. He has given it all back in such a tender way that when I think about the loss, all you can remember is how He lovingly He answered my tears of prayer with His song.
Musical Devotionals
A playlist with several videos incorporating fellowship with song. Click here for the playlist.
Learn to enjoy the Psalms as fellowship with God who knows our hearts, and who lived the very words of anguish when He came as Man. Find the words for your pain given in God’s Word spoken by Jesus at the Cross for you.
Enjoy hearing the entire text of the Lord’s prayer before going to the Cross, sung over you with all the words from John chapter 17 on the screen to read along. The music is by Jack Wilmore, and was often sung in our house by my mom.
This video incorporates artwork I created as part of my study on the Tabernacle. It is the first of my videos to include fellowship, art, and music, and it’s so special! May it usher you into the Holy of Holies, the glory of God who is our Home.
This reflection shares part of the breakthrough that restored my ability to play and sing again. Reclaim your own gifts from God as reflections of His personality given to us to enjoy throughout life, rather than given to define us or dictate our lives.