He Gave Me a Song
Our family moved to Cookeville, Tennessee from Lawrenceburg when I was young, and while I have few clear memories of our life before that transition, those that remain are special to me. My first friends in elementary school, my first watchthrough of the original Star Wars trilogy (a core memory), the building where I first remember attending church, and many others standout in my mind. However, there is one memory that I hope I will have for the rest of my life.
Actually, the image in my head is a composite of many similar days throughout the years. It always includes the swing-set in our backyard, with the woods behind our house in the background. As I get older, my brother and then my sister become clearer and clearer (and louder and louder). Amid other changes, there are two constants throughout the scene. The first is my mom, who spent countless hours with the one, two, and three of us in the backyard. The second is the songs she would sing to and with us: Good Old Noah, the Caterpillar Song, I Just Want to Be a Sheep, Only a Little Boy David, and dozens of other children’s songs about the Bible that I remember to this day and still sing to myself frequently. (They’ve also come in handy more than a few times in my time as a youth minister.)
These memories are special to me because they are the foundation of my entire life. In those moments, my mom taught me to love the Lord and His Word, and to learn as much about it as I can. She taught me to sing genuinely and lovingly about my Creator and Friend, and the value of singing His praises with other people. She taught me to teach others about who He is, and to let them know that He is everything to me. She taught me the innocence, joy, love, and wonder of being a child, and that I could hold onto those things and rejoice in them every day as long as I am a child of God.
I hope to teach as many of those songs to as many people as I can, because I still love them, my mom who taught them to me, the Book from which they are taken, and the innocent faith they represent. More than that, though, I hope that we as Christians can still find joy in God’s Word, in sharing that Word with the world, and in glorifying God together as His people. Smile and sing, church! Your Father loves you so.
“But Jesus called them to Him, saying, ‘Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them, for
to such belongs the kingdom of God.’” ~ Luke 18:16
AUTHOR: Luke Tatum
