Music
Music has always been a huge part of my life since I was
little. I can remember when I was maybe
only three or four years old, my grandmother would put me up on top of a picnic
table at the annual family reunion and say “sing for everyone”. I would sing “You are my sunshine” and top it
off with a sort of childlike soft shoe ending.
Over the years, I was in school choruses, several church
choirs and even went on the road with my late husband as evangelists and sang
in churches and faith groups all across the United States and Canada. All anyone had to say was “sing, Shavanna”
and I would break out in a song. I
remember one year at the airport in Washington D.C. while we were waiting for a
flight, a group of us girls were just coming home from an Aglow Conference and
one of the gals said the “magic” word and right there in the airport, I began
to sing “hail Jesus you’re my King”….and everyone in the airport stopped as the
gals echoed the song, which is how it goes.
About half way through I realized we were in a very public place and I
looked around to see if I could read what people were thinking and they were
all smiling and clapping and seemed to really be enjoying it. I have always believed that music is a
universal language, because even if you don’t understand the words, music
touches the heart, heals the soul and enriches our spirits.
So it goes without saying that I absolutely love Christmas
songs. I have several favorite tapes
that I play each year for a variety of different reasons. My fun favorite is my redneck
Christmas tape, and probably my most moving one is my Vince Gill tape. I play Alan Jackson’s, Let it be Christmas
because that song so speaks my message of “let it be Christmas everywhere, let
heavenly music fill the hair, let every heart sing and every bell ring the
story of hope and joy and peace and let it be Christmas, Christmas everywhere. There is one song on the Vince Gill tape that
always makes me cry because he wrote it about the first Christmas since his
brother passed away and it so fits my youngest brother because Vince sings
about how Christmas time was his favorite time of year. I like to sit in front of my tree with only
the Christmas lights on in the house and listen to the Vince Gill tape and
reflect on what Christmas really means (which by the way is some of the words
he says in one of his songs).
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