My mother used to worry about me since I exhibited zero musical skills. She actually bought me a trombone and hired a teacher. He showed me the positions on the slide and the sound each made, then quit during the second lesson, when I played “Whispering Hope” by ear. I sang in the church’s Youth Choir because I was the Pastor’s son. I should have suspected something was wrong when the director suggested that I shouldn’t feel forced to sing in the choir. Yet I love music. Most of my family and some of my best friends are musicians. My father was the only family member with less music talent than I, and he whistled everywhere he went. As a Seminary professor some of my best friends were music professors. I enjoyed going to lunch with them because they didn’t have to mix theology with their vegetables. For a segment of my life I awoke every morning with a song in my head. My mother said it was an answer to her prayer and claimed God had given me her song. I’ve actually put new words to existing hymn tunes, so I’m not totally music-less. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. said, “Alas for those that never sing, but die with all their music in them!” I don’t want to do that. Neither do you. So, bottle it up no longer. Somehow, someway, let your music out, “making melody in your heart to the Lord” (Eph. 5:19).
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