A home filled with the beautiful sound of music is a welcome reprieve from a noisy world. It doesn’t take a musician to know that good music can bring families together as few things can. It’s difficult to be angry, sarcastic, or contentious for long when sacred strains fill the home. Families who sing or enjoy good music together share a special bond as they join in song and communicate soul to soul.
While traveling in the car, two teenage daughters started to bicker in the back seat. Their wise mother kept driving and began humming a familiar hymn. At first the girls didn’t catch on, but then the mother asked them to help her remember the words to the chorus. Before they could think otherwise, the girls found themselves singing and smiling and forgetting their troubles. Happy sounds filled the car again. The healing balm of music had touched their hearts and helped them to forgive each other.
Music is a language that even the smallest family member can understand. One of life’s sweetest moments is to see an infant settle into peaceful slumber with a lullaby. A child forgets how much her scraped knee hurts when her mother holds her close and whispers a song in her ear. Grown-ups too can forget their problems when they raise their voices in uplifting singing—even if their voices are untrained and their pitch less than perfect. Whatever the age, it’s never too late to bring beautiful music into our homes and hearts.
Not long ago a father lay critically ill in a hospital bed. For days on end he hovered in and out of consciousness. He remembers little about those long days, but he can tell you that his daughters came and sang to him. And he can tell you many of the words of their songs. Somehow their music comforted him and kept him connected to life and family, reminding him how much he wanted to go home again.
Perhaps that’s why uplifting music has the power to inspire and heal, to generate happiness and peace. It brings heaven and earth together and gives us a sense of the beautiful music in our heavenly home.
Oh, what songs of the heart
We shall sing all the day,
When again we assemble at home, . . .
When we meet ne’er to part,
Oh, what songs of the heart
We shall sing in our beautiful home.[1]
Program #3903
[1] “Oh, What Songs of the Heart,” Hymns, no. 286.