The power of a song

There is a song that is a literal connection between my soul and Heaven.  I know many people feel that way about certain songs, and many even may share that same feeling about the particular song that I am writing about.  It is a hymn that I discovered last year.  For many years I was struggling with my testimony and feeling that God truly loved me.  Most of those feelings settled in on my life when I had my several miscarriages.  I wrote a little about that a while back when I blogged about an experience with Patrick where I felt that the Lord had extended a tender mercy to me.

After that particular experience I wanted to feel those tender mercies in my life more.  I wanted and strived to connect with Heavenly Father.  So I set up a Pandora station and began to listen primarily to Christian worship music.  A good many of these were some of my favorite LDS artists.  One day a hymn played that stopped me in my tracks as I was finally completely aware that I could  feel the Lord.  I had been trying and trying to marinade in things of the Spirit for a long time and the dividend paid off!  The hymn was "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing."  I don't recall that I had ever heard it before.  If I had then I didn't remember it.  I thumbed up the track and listened to the station constantly with the hope of hearing it again.  It was the vocal version by Fernando Ortega. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FU1u6Lmz27A .  For me it was literally "soul stirring."  How could it not be with lyrics such as,

Come, Thou Fount of every blessing
Tune my heart to sing Thy grace
Streams of mercy never ceasing
Call for songs of loudest praise
Teach me some melodious sonnet
Sung by flaming tongues above
Praise the name! I’m fixed upon it
Name of Thy redeeming love
I recall sitting in a church meeting and the leader asked if anyone had a particular hymn we would like to sing.  I knew instantly which one and I picked up the little Hymnal and asked if we could sing "Come Thou Fount."  I was shocked when she said it wasn't in there.  It was removed from the LDS Hymn Book when the new Hymn Book came out in 1985 "Come Thou Fount" was one of the many that was removed to make room for other hymns.  I feel it is a terrible loss, but on the other hand, we did gain "How Great Thou Art" in the current version. 

The church's response to how they restructured the hymn book is this, "Just as some hymns have been added to the book, some have also been deleted. ‘Through the years a number of hymns have only rarely been sung,’ said Elder Pinnock. ‘Wanting to keep the book to a reasonable size, and needing to add new hymns, we felt it would be wise to remove some of the little-used hymns.’ Members may want to keep their old hymnbooks as a treasure, Brother Moody suggested, and continue to sing the hymns they love that may not appear in the new book. …  "  To read the full article, click here: http://www.lds.org/ensign/1985/09/the-new-hymnbook-the-saints-are-singing?lang=eng.

I couldn't fathom how a song so soul-stirring was one that didn't make the cut.  I finally understood why I hadn't remembered hearing it prior to that day I heard it on Pandora.  So from then on it was only on the Internet that I could obtain the spiritual boost that I would get each time I heard this beautiful hymn.  I have wanted to write about this hymn for over a year now.  For the longest time I have tried to find the words that describe what my soul feels when I hear it.  Still a year later the words fail me.  The closest thing I can come to describing it is a poem by an unknown author.

For the common things of everyday,
God gave us speech in the common way.
For the deeper things we think and feel,
God gave the poets words to reveal.
But for the heights and depths no words can reach,
God gave us music, the soul's own speech.

Fast forward a few months after the discovery of this hymn and I was sitting in my mother's hospital room as she lay dying.  We decided to sing to her as she breathed her last breaths on this mortal earth.  Somebody mentioned that "Come Thou Fount" was her favorite hymn and suggested that we sing it.  I perked up.  What? I thought.  How didn't I ever know that the hymn that was responsible for wiring my heart back to heaven was my own mother's favorite hymn?  I was glad to sing it with everyone else.  By now, I had even learned all of the words.  I also discovered that it was my brother, Jordan's favorite hymn.  All this time I thought this treasure of a song was a little known secret and here I find out that it is many people's favorite hymn.

As we planned my mom's funeral one of my sibling's said that my mom requested that "Come Thou Fount" be sung at her funeral along with "The King of Love my Shepherd is."  For both services (one in St. George and one in Idaho) we had two very talented Tenors sing this tribute to our Savior.  It was beautiful.  Just hours before her burial my dad said that he wished that someone could sing it at the graveside service.  My mom always encouraged me to sing.  I like to do it, but I always choke due to nerves and it sounds awful, so I don't do it publicly.  I am a shower singer.  But that day I said to my dad that I would do it.  Mom always wanted me to sing.  I will do it.  I felt more comfortable having someone sing with me, so my brother-in-law, Justin, sang with me.  I can only imagine that my mom was by my side calming my nerves because I never even felt a twinge of nervousness at the graveside.  Of course I know that hymn inside out and that helped, but it was the final gift I could give my mother....singing in public in her honor.  Oh yeah, and we sang a capella.   I don't really know how it sounded, but I am grateful for the opportunity to have sang the anthem of my soul for my mother that day and that is all that mattered.

As life has gone on since losing my mom I continue to listen to "Come Thou Fount" almost daily.  At first I wasn't sure if I would ever be able to hear it again without it bringing back the painful reminder that my mom was gone.  But I didn't want it to take on the form of a forbidden song that only brought sorrow.  I loved it before my mom died and I want to always feel the connection to heaven that it gives me.  And now it gives me the added bonus to feeling connected to my mother.

A few months after my mom's death I heard a different version of the hymn on Pandora.  It was instrumental violin and piano music.  I could have sworn that the veil parted and I had an even stronger connection to the other side.  The haunting sound of the violin was as though the sound was coming from one of its' strings that was literally tied from my heart as it stretched into heaven.  Words fail to describe this emotion, but that is the best I can do.  The version is by Stephanie Immordino. http://www.jango.com/music/Stephanie+Immordino?l=0

 Each day I crossed my fingers that her version would be the one played on Pandora.  I finally wised up and just bought her MP3 from Amazon so that I can hear it all the time.  Every time I heard it I felt a draw to come to my blog and write about it.  But because my words failed to have an adequate description, I put it off over and over again.  Then last Sunday our church choir sang this hymn.  My Bishop declared it as his favorite hymn. I sat and silently sobbed, tuned out to the hundreds of other people around me who were probably wondering what on earth was wrong with me.  It was the final kick in the pants to write about it.  So for whatever reason, I was to write an ode to this song.  If you have stuck with this post this long, then thank you.  While I was researching this song a little more for some information for this post, I discovered a 4th verse that I didn't know existed.  It is beautiful.  Here it is:

Oh that day when freed from sinning
I shall see Thy lovely face
Full arrayed in blood-washed linen
How I’ll sing Thy sovereign grace
Come, my Lord, no longer tarry
Bring Thy promises to pass
For I know Thy pow’r will keep me
Till I’m home with Thee at last

I believe that I connect with this song so much because I am such a sinner.  I am daily trying to improve, and I am better than my once colorful past, but that is why I love it so much.  I am the sinner that "Jesus sought me when a stranger, wandering from the fold of God.  He to rescue me from danger, interposed His precious blood."  I can only pray that from this day forward my heart will forever be sealed to Him.

If I had a picture to go with this song, it would be this one by Del Parson titled Black Lamb.