Somehow I missed the music gene. Or maybe it missed me. I took years and years of piano lessons as a child but it never came naturally to me. When it comes to singing, well, it's kind of like drawing - I can tell when the line or the note is right but I just can't seem to make my brain tell my hand or vocal chords how to actually DO it. And I have to confess that when I'm alone, I prefer silence to music. I sort of wonder if there's something unnatural about that but I don't know.
My husband and all my kids seem to have the music gene. Obviously, just like their Rhesus factor, they got it from their father. I have always enjoyed hearing my guys plucking and strumming their guitars. Both of my girls enjoy singing along to their iPods and it always brings me joy to hear them belting out the tunes. I love standing next to my daughter in church and hearing her beautiful voice do what mine can't. It's definitely a gift and I definitely don't have it.
I've sometimes wondered about Paul's injunction to the Ephesians: "speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord." How to make melody with my heart to the Lord when there just doesn't seem to be a melody there? Pluck the strings and what comes out is a twang and thwack, not beautiful music.
I think for myself the "melody" is strongly connected to joy, more than to actual musical notes. And joy is something I've been thinking a lot about over the last few months. The older I get, the more joy I experience. I have become more and more deeply convinced of two things: God's love and His sovereignty. And being firmly convinced of those, my heart is liberated. It may not soar in song but it does well up in great thankfulness and love. Perhaps that is the "in your hearts" part of Paul's command.
I'm sort of wondering how it will work in the New Heavens and New Earth. Maybe I'll have a beautiful voice. Or maybe our ears will only hear the heart.
