For my mother's Christmas gift, my dad got her an iPod. Yes, my mom has now officially crossed into the 20th century (not a typo!). (Sorry mom, if you are reading this!) Well, for our part of her gift I miraculously got my children to sing some songs that I recorded onto her iPod so we could play it through speakers on Christmas morning to her. She loved it and plays it for all her friends and her music students are already benefitting from her wealth of flute music.
The real poignancy of it for me was in the replay of my children singing the doxology, long after they had gone to bed. To hear their sweet, trembling, tenor voices praising the Lord, it brings tears right to the surface. "Praise God from who all blessings flow. Praise Him all creatures here below! Praise Him above, ye heavenly host! Praise Father, Son, & Holy Ghost. Amen." Of course, the words were all in a jumble with swahili sounding accents and varying degrees of loudness and softness, but so sweet.
When the Pharisees are scolding Jesus and his disciples for allowing the children to run through the temple shouting, "Praise to the Son of David!" Jesus replies to them that "From the lips of infants you have ordained praise..." and that if he required them to be quiet even the rock would cry out in praise. I don't think that there is a sound more beautiful than the sound of children singing to Jesus. There is a truth that is screamed out from their gentle, trembling voices that the Lord is to be Praised! The innocence and purity of children's hearts praising God out of simplicity and joy, bring me to my knees. I know the burdens of the world are waiting at the door of their hearts, a little in school maybe, a little from the media, a little from me maybe. I want to sit back and listen to them sing, sweet and true, and hold tight to their innocence a little longer. Oh! How the Lord loves these little ones! If I can feel such love, how much more must he?
