Song

I heard her before I saw her.

I was loaded down with bags of coffee and accessories (cream, sugar, spoons, and a 12-cup coffee pot) to take to a coffeehouse/worship night on campus.  Our musician for the evening, Ethan, was a part-time youth minister/part-time worship leader who was visiting us with his 10-year-old daughter, Kaylea, in tow.

My first thought, getting the coffee pot up and running before the students arrived, was interrupted by the infectious laugh of a girl playing ping-pong with her dad in the next room.  Ethan and I had corresponded via e-mail, so when we met face to face I felt like I was catching up with an old friend.  And then he introduced me to Kaylea, who had big curls and a bigger smile. 

Ethan played original music and told stories until past Kaylea’s bedtime.  (It didn’t help that she was fighting a cold AND the sleep-inducing effects of the cold medicine.)  At one point in his set, Ethan introduced one of his original songs that he wrote while his wife was pregnant with Kaylea – this lullaby was “Kaylea’s song.”   

When he mentioned that, Kaylea perked up and broke out into a grin from ear to ear – a sheepish, slightly embarrassed grin from being singled out in this group of college students, and yet a smile beaming with pride at knowing this song was her father’s gift TO her, and ABOUT her.  All this, while her daddy sat on a stool with his guitar singing and talking about the work of God in the lives of His children, a work that prompts us to sing and worship him. 

The next morning, Ethan also shared some of his original songs in chapel.  During the sound check, Kaylea was right on stage beside him, with her trademark smile, singing the words to her father’s songs, including her professed “favorite.”   

Maybe that’s the movement that God wants in His children – from being humbled and overwhelmed by the realization that our Father is singing TO us, singing a song that He wrote just FOR us, to joining in that song WITH Him. 

The LORD your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you; in his love he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing.”  (Zephaniah 3:17, NIV)