Keep Singing

The joy of the Lord can flow through a song that is offered to God, and we can be inspired by surrounding ourselves with songs that can help us to increase our awareness of God and our worship of him. Psalm 28 says:
6 Blessed be the Lord, Because He has heard the voice of my supplications!
7 The Lord is my strength and my shield; My heart trusted in Him, and I am helped; Therefore my heart greatly rejoices, And with my song I will praise Him.
8 The Lord is their strength, And He is the saving refuge of His anointed.

God has given us His Word so that we might have direction and hope for our lives, and He has made it possible to come into His presence, to find our hearts encouraged as we sing to Him and declare his praises - there is an inward effect on our spirits and we draw closer to Him. We can make worship a priority so that we have a sense of His heart and the knowledge of Him - that can have a profound effect on the way that we walk through this world.

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The Lord invites us to enter into His presence with songs of praise and worship, being reminded that he is with us and does not forget the people whom He created and whom He loves. Isaiah 49 states:
13 Sing, O heavens! Be joyful, O earth! And break out in singing, O mountains! For the Lord has comforted His people, And will have mercy on His afflicted.
14 But Zion said, "The Lord has forsaken me, And my Lord has forgotten me."
15 "Can a woman forget her nursing child, And not have compassion on the son of her womb? Surely they may forget, Yet I will not forget you.
16 See, I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands; Your walls are continually before Me.

Music is an incredible gift that God has given to us.  Through music, through lifting our voices in song, we can connect with God's presence and enter into worship of our Savior. 

And, legendary gospel music singer Gerald Wolfe has launched an effort to help patients with dementia to participate in that incredible practice.  

Baptist Press reports that "...Wolfe was visiting his father, who was suffering from Parkinson’s disease dementia at a care facility, when a guitarist playing 'In the Sweet By and By' struck a chord of memory among patients there." He said, "Within just minutes, most of the people in the room started to sing, and they knew the song..."

The article relates that...

That moment inspired Wolfe to lead the Gospel Music Hymn Sing Foundation in an ongoing outreach project that has dispersed a total of nearly 47,000 gospel music DVDs among more than 15,600 nursing homes. Under Operation Sing Again, each facility received three DVDs featuring well-known gospel artists leading congregations of as many as 2,000 people singing cherished hymns in sanctuaries such as First Baptist Church of Atlanta’s. Each DVD closes with an invitation to receive the Gospel.

Wolfe says that as patients watch the DVD's, "They feel like they're in church..."

And, during these times of isolation resulting from COVID, the products have become even more valuable. Gerald Wolfe says, “When we started Operation Sing Again, we had no idea that COVID was coming and that the residents in the nursing care facilities wouldn’t be allowed to have visitors for so long, but God knew...We’ve received stacks of cards and notes from activity directors letting us know how encouraging the DVDs have been for their residents, especially during the last year. They’ve become a kind of lifeline connecting the residents to the familiar scenes of a church sanctuary, and the songs they sang all their lives.”

Mary Anne Oglesby, director of Veranda Ministries in Gallatin, TN is quoted in the article; her facility was the first to introduce the DVD's to patients. She says, "It’s a known fact that they will sing when they can’t speak,” adding'. “Music is stored in a different section of the brain than our speech and words, … because music is not speaking and singing; it’s a melody, it’s a rhythm. That’s one of the last things to go, for any of us.”

The DVD's have been distributed to over 15,000 nursing homes and are in the process of being distributed to perhaps as many as 20,000 hospice and respite care facilities.  

It all stemmed from the day that Gerald Wolfe, visiting his father, who died of Parkinson's just over two years ago, saw the response of the people in the nursing home who heard a guitar playing a simple gospel song. 

I have to admit, being a musician myself, music is a powerful creation of God.  He has designed it as a means to connect with Himself, so that we might experience His presence and even remember His truth. And, music can continue to inspire us, even when our faculties diminish later in life, according to one of the people quoted in that Baptist Press story.  

In our times of desperation, isolation, and discouragement, we can be encouraged by entering in to worship.  God has provided us with access to His throne, and one of the ways that we approach Him is by humbling our hearts and lifting our voices.  We can be encouraged to continue to come before Him, to keep singing, especially when we need to be emboldened within our hearts.