Nothing Like Music

As many of you know, this past week we traveled to Utah to visit my brother and his family and welcome the birth of my new nephew, Korban Kristopher Zyp.  It was a wonderful visit–Dutch and his cousin Jennika were able to play for hours, running around the lawn as my brother sprayed them with the hose, digging in the sandbox (Dutch digging while Jennika rocked her babydoll in Heidi’s infant seat–you cannot tell me boys and girls are wired the same at birth!), and sharing a peanut butter sandwich in the warm Utah sunshine.

The first couple days were rough, though. After a crazy busy week, we left at 6pm, arrived in Ontario at 1:30am, and “napped” for a few hours–Heidi slept in a drawer (!) and we put two chairs together to form an enclosed bed for Dutch. The bathroom was so small you had to stand in the shower to close the door, and we were tired and dirty.  We got up at 7am, scarfed the Super 8 continental breakfast, and were back on the road by 8:30am.  When we arrived at Kris’s at 3pm we were overjoyed to see them…but a little tired and creaky after all six of us (my parents too) were crammed in our Honda for 800 miles.

And when we arrived up at the Snowbird resort, and were surrounded by, well, snow, I was a little surprised. Somehow I’d envisioned a vacation of laying out in the sun by the pool all day.  It was in the 50s and there was snow everywhere. No sunbathing. Plus the altitude was so high and it was so dry, that the whole first day there I was feeling horrible.  THe four of us were in one room and neither of the kids could sleep well (we read that elevation sickness hits kids harder), which meant no sleep for mommy either.  Late Saturday night I told Jeff I wanted to fly home the next morning. And I wasn’t kidding.

Obviously I was being a wimp. The next day we went to church, and taking time to worship our Lord, and be with my brother’s family, made it all better. Plus, we ended up just going down to their house every day (which was 30 degrees warmer!) and I got my fill of glorious sunshine.  Then Korban was born on Wednesday, and by the time we left, I chalked it up as one of the best vacations we’ve ever taken.

But strange as this might sound, one of the hightlights of the whole vacation was the drive home.  We decided to go for it and do it all in one day–we left at 9am and got home at 11:30pm.  We gained an hour but stopped off at my brother’s for 1/2 hour, so about 15 hours or so in all.  About halfway through, Jeff handed me his ipod and headphones and suggested I just tune out the kids and listen to some music.  Ahh…glorious offer!  That is speaking my love language. So he read books to Dutch, juggled sippy cups and alphabet cookies, and made goo goo noises with Heidi will I propped my feet up on the suitcase next to me, leaned over to the window, and turned the volume up until I heard nothing but sweet, glorious worship music.

Wow.  There is nothing like music.  For abour five hours I sat and watched the beautiful landscape.  The dark brown hills like sand, the winding river, the glorious green pastures rising and falling as we drove. The beautifully dilapitated barns and farmhouses, the thousands of cattle. And as we neared Portland, we saw the most glorious sunset I have ever witnessed. In fact because of traveling and because of the angle of the cliffs to the West, it made it appear as if the sun set and rose several times as we drove. It was an amazing phenomenon.  As I sat there, engrossed in the beauty, overwhelmed by the words of old hymns remixed by Page CXVI, tears streamed down my face.  What a beautiful God we serve!  I felt like I could almost feel that inexpressible joy that we will someday experience, when at last we see our glorious Creator face to face. When we join with all creation to sing Worthy is the Lamb.  I felt like in those five hours, tucked into the third row of our Honda Pilot, I had a life-changing retreat with my Jesus.

Then Sunday.  Joel’s message was on…music.  He’s doing a series called Elements, basically going through the things we do on Sunday mornings and why we do them. Why we sing, teach, remember (communion), and give.  Why do we do what we do.  And this week’s message, on music, reminded me afresh how powerful it is when we make music and sing to our God. It isn’t for us. It’s for HIM. For His pleasure, His glory.  We sing, we bow, we lift our hands, as an offering to our God.  And what power there is in music!  I can’t even imagine how glorious it will be to worship our King for all eternity.

Then came my birthday…and what did my husband get me? Speakers!  See, the speakers on my laptop don’t work, and we don’t have a stereo, so I never had any way to play music or sermons at home.  Well he got me speakers that I can plug into my laptop or his ipod (which I suspect may be handed down to me if he gets his birthday wish).  So tonight, after tucking the kids in bed, I lit a candle, drew a hot bath, and played my new favorite CXVI hymns again. How great is our God!

And lastly, which may seem unrelated but isn’t, I read the remarkable blog, www.deathisnotdying.com.  As I read the amazing words of Rachel, who is dying of terminal cancer, I wept and wept, unable to even fathom the pain of leaving one’s husband and children behind.  What all this reminded me of is that we are wise to remember how unthinkably short this life truly is.  Our life is a breath.  It is two seconds long, as John Piper says.  And while unbearable sorrow will be ours as long as we walk this earth, heaven awaits us. Glorious heavenly bliss awaits us all who know and love our Lord Jesus.  And it seems that music takes us there in a way few other things can. Worship takes us there.  Worship gives us the tiniest little foretaste of heaven. Whets our appetite for the glorious worship service at the marriage supper of the Lamb.  I pray that we would discover again the beauty of music, of singing worship music to our savior, of letting His praises transport our souls to the heavenly realm, giving us perspective we so desperately need. There’s nothing like music to take us there.

The things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.

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Check out www.pageCXVI.com here and www.deathisnotdying.com here