30 Days of Thanksgiving: November 9

Day 9: When I was a kid, my mom taught my 3 sisters and I to sing together, and in harmony. As we grew up, she'd have us sing for church, for rest homes, for competition, and yes, even on vacation she would volunteer us to sing pretty much everywhere we went. As preteens and teenagers we would get so embarrassed when volunteered by our mom to sing pretty much everywhere. She never seemed to tire of "embarrassing" us like that and I never understood why until today.

Today was one of those days where absolutely nothing went as planned, and on top of it I'd been stuck in the house with all 4 kids for almost 2 whole weeks. I just wanted to cry, scream, or some combination of the two. I was just plain exhausted and needed some reprieve. Jared was filling in for one of the professors at Bible Institute so I decided that even if the roads were icky I had to go to church. I needed a large dose of spiritual refreshment. I packed all the kids up, hooked the MP3 player to the tape adapter in our 1999 Windstar, and headed to church. The first song came on and everyone was quiet just listening until the chorus. Then from the seats behind me it came, the precious sound of Reagan and Evie singing, "Yea, justified! O blessed thought! And sanctified! Salvation wrought! Thy blood hath pardon bought for me, and glorified, I too, shall be!" (Complete in Thee) That's when it hit me, after a day like today, there was no sweeter sound than hearing my children sing about my Savior and the gift of salvation that He offers. I finally understood it - this was why my mother never tired of hearing us sing. So I am thankful today for my mother taking the time to teach us to sing and also for the MANY times that she (even to our embarrassment) made us sing. 

For the rest of the 25 minute drive, we all (including Amelia) enjoyed singing along to Ben Everson, the Outreach Quartet, and Bruce Frye; and some day in the future, I, too, will "embarrass" my kids by making them sing.