Music has always been the way I felt safe expressing emotions too deep for words. I loved it since I was a girl, begged for lessons, and sang everywhere I went without realizing it. In high school, I was sexually abused by a man who 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. After the abuse, which lasted the entirety of my adolescence, I was unable to play piano or sing. I was married for six years in my early twenties, during which time my husband moved a heavy keyboard around to our three different homes. He never once heard me play; it wasn’t until our divorce and I was beginning to hear about Jesus that I had the courage to try playing again.
Beloved Music
For 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 with the Lord and with the deep fellowship He gives us in music. The God who spoke this world into existence understand there are things for which there are no words. He knows 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 went to a church which I only agreed to attend because my friends were taking me. I somehow was separated from them and ended up sitting by myself in a room full of people who 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 sing often as part of my videos now because it’s as natural to the flow of conversation as breathing, but it certainly wasn’t always that way. I pray the music devotionals and songs shared on my YouTube channel that are linked for you here will bless you with the hope that the Lord can restore what the enemy takes. He can give it all back in such a tender way that when you think about the loss, all you can remember is how He lovingly sat with you in the silence, and answered your tears of prayer with His song.
A playlist with several videos incorporating fellowship with song. Click here for the playlist.
Musical Devotionals
Enjoy hearing the entire text of John 17 sung over you with all the words on the screen to read along. The music is by Jack Wilmore