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Insight
(Dragonfly
Ministries
President, Mary Hamrick)
September
2005
"Songbird"
When
Patrick Daniel was two years old, he was a songbird. He had the most
beautiful little-boy voice and he would sing real songs and made-up
songs. I could hear him singing all over the house, almost all
the time. His songbird voice was threatened one night during our
dinnertime. We were having green peas and little P.D. refused to
eat his. After a long time of parental guidance, he put a
spoonful of peas in his mouth, and he kept them there. For the
longest time, this two-year-old child had the peas in his mouth –
unchewed – and he refused to chew and swallow. Needless to say, I
was getting frustrated because I wanted to move on to other tasks
rather than staring at a two year old to make sure he ate his peas (a
battle of wills, and the mama was going to win!). Finally, after
trying everything else I could think of, I said, “Daniel, if you don’t
eat those peas, you will never be able to sing again.” In an
instant, he had chewed and swallowed the peas, and he was back to being
the songbird that I yearned for. You know, we very rarely have
green peas for dinner anymore, and that was 10 years ago!
I can relate to the “peas in the mouth” story. I grew up in a
small Baptist church in Sharon, S.C. My mom played the piano for
the church and my dad sang bass in the choir. As soon as I was
old enough, I joined the youth choir and began singing solos (and
duets) in our church and in surrounding churches. When I joined
the adult choir, I was about 16 years old, and I began singing solos in
our church. I am not a great singer by any means … but I love to
sing to the Lord! Until I got a mouth full of peas. They
weren’t the kind of peas that P.D. didn’t want to eat. These were
peas of self-centeredness. I came to a place in life, in my
mid-twenties, when I determined that walking with God was getting in
the way of my enjoyment of "real-life" on earth, (doing what I wanted
to versus what God wanted me to do). So I walked away from the
church and turned my back on God. And when I did that, the
songbird in me died. I still loved to listen to music, but I was
not able to sing any longer. When I would occasionally attend
church, there was no sound that came out when I tried to sing, or if
there was a sound, it was so deep and crackly that it was embarrassing.
In at attempt to become that songbird once again, I joined two church
choirs – one in N.C., the other in Texas, thinking that by singing, I
would be able to sing. Not true. The Lord had shut down my
singing abilities and it wasn’t time for Him to restore me to
song. I understood. When the Lord was ready for me to sing,
my voice would return. But until my heart was ready to sing to
Him, until my life more closely resembled His character, He did not
want me to sing. “When you sing, you will bring glory to My
name.” So I would move my lips during worship time at church, or
croak through the songs, and I so much missed being God’s
songbird. And I so much appreciated the discipline that God was
teaching me. “All things as unto the Lord.” I would be able
to sing when He was ready for me to sing and not until then. When
I returned to singing, it would be because HE had given me a voice to
sing; it would be because He had picked the place and time, and it
would be at a time and place that He chose.
Twenty years have passed since my mouth has been filled with
peas. Twenty years of not being able to carry much of a
tune. Twenty years of faith building, of repentance, of seeking
God, of growing closer to Him. Twenty years of learning to trust
Him, of learning that walking away from Him was no longer an
option. I now belong to Him.
About four months ago while sitting in church, we began to sing a song
that I loved and when I opened my mouth to croak through the song, my
voice was not croaky anymore, but rather, there was a tune and a tone
that I recognized from years before. Let me tell you, this
servant of God knew exactly where this gift had come from and through
tears, I finished singing and I praised God that He had allowed me to
swallow the peas so that I could sing again. “Lord, I give you my
heart, I give you my all; Lord have your way in me.”
As the peas went down slowly, I began to sing louder and louder, trying
out the new voice God had given me. About the same time, our
church started asking for new choir members to help out with the
Christmas cantata. And I signed up to be a part of our church
choir. “Use me, Lord, to blend in with the others.”
I joined the choir on a Thursday night; two weeks later, the Lord had
me singing a solo in our morning church service, and standing with our
Praise and Worship band to lead the congregation in music. What a
joy. And the Lord whispers, “For a time such as this.” I am
humbled that He would forgive me for walking away from Him 20 years
ago; I am humbled that when I walked away 20 years ago, and I stayed
away three years from His presence, He brought me back into His
care. I am humbled that, though my voice is not at a professional
level, He will use the desire of my heart as I sing to reach someone.
To be a songbird for God, it’s not the sound of your voice that counts
– it’s the condition of your heart. With all that I am, I know
that God sees the heart within us, and that is where He wants to work –
to make us more like Him. To weed out the peas in life that keep
us from giving our best to Him. Be God’s songbird! Let Him
teach you how to sing, how to live life to the fullest.
In Christ,
Mary
(For
Ann Jarman. Thank you, Ann, for encouraging me to write through
A&K)
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