Sunday School Songs!? A Note From Jan.

Sunday School Songs! I did not want to play the CD but Maggie and Poco wanted to listen to THAT CD, AGAIN, en route to school. Not me. After a shortened night of sleep and too few sips of coffee to jump start the day, I preferred classical music, silence or a sports update to Sunday School songs. Not the grands.

So I shoved in the CD without comment, then found the strangest thing happening. Wouldn’t you know it, the first song was, ”Rise and shine and give God the glory … glory.” Before I could get a grip, my left foot started tapping and I began singing with the grands. With Noah, we built an “arky, arky” because of the “floody, floody.” Cannot believe all we did as “children of the Lord.”

Next, we slew a giant with a small stone in a sling. Got any giants in your day? Try the singing sling. We muscled up and shouted, “My God is so strong, so great and so mighty, there’s nothing my God cannot do.” We sang encouragement to short people (Zacchaeus) and all the colors of the world, people colors. You know, “Jesus loves the little children.  All the children of the world.”

I do know it’s hazardous to text and drive, so don’t go near that. But, so far, no laws against doing hand motions while tooling down the highway. (One hand on the wheel!) We wrapped it with “He’s got the Whole World in His hands,” just before I pulled to the curb in front of their school. Not a bad way to jumpstart the day. For them. For me.

The turn of my mood reminded me of the first women’s retreat I ever attended. My Michigan Marty and Carolyn took me, kicking and screaming. Fear of the unknown.

Jill Briscoe was one of the speakers.  Years later she came to Gordon and spoke several times. I still remember the text from one of her talks.  Psalm 137:1-4 “By the rivers of Babylon, we sat and wept when we remembered Zion.   There on poplars we hung our harps,  for there our captors asked us for songs, our tormentors demanded songs of joy; they said,’Sing us one of the songs of Zion!’”

“How can we sing the songs of the Lord while in a foreign land?”

This weekend I’m inching out to speak at a retreat on the subject of HOPE. The tormentors taunt, whispering, “How dare you come off the shelf to speak to anyone?!”  “What do you REALLY know about Hope?!” They seem to chide, ”Sing us one of your songs.” I’m all too aware that there’ve been days when I’ve “hung my harp on a poplar tree while I sat and wept.”

But then I recall God showing up through two granddaughters, forcing me through a simple CD to take back my harp and “sing the songs of the Lord.” Childlike faith songs.  Even silly songs. But songs sung with joy by two of God’s youngsters and one older, wrinkled model croaking out a joyful noise from a heart of gratitude to the One who nudges me to get up, get dressed and get on with living this day. Breathe in hope. Exhale fear.

I’m packing THAT CD, just in case I need to do battle with some naysayers en route to the retreat.  I guarantee they’ll flee once they hear me sing!