Stuck In A Moment

About ten years ago, my siblings and I discovered something very interesting about my dad; he is unable to let a song go unfinished. You see, I come from a family of singers; at any given time you can easily find any one of us humming, singing, or harmonizing with anything from another person to a kitchen appliance. I am not kidding. It is not uncommon to be in a room as someone walks through singing a tune and while we are often inclined to jump in and join in the singing, many times we don’t even notice. My dad however, is unable to ignore the song and as soon as the person leaves he sings the rest of the line. We caught on to this and begin intentionally singing phrases and then walking out or just stopping altogether to see if he would finish the line. It became so comical that we began betting how long it would take for him to finish; we now spice up the half-sung song game by finding really annoying songs to get stuck in his head (our most successful attempt lasted three days). I really enjoyed this game up until about six months ago when really random songs popped into the back of my mind and made their way to my humming and/or singing. It took a while for me to notice but it occurred to me that my youngest sister was pulling the half-sung song trick on ME! It is true, I am my father’s daughter and I apparently am unable to leave a song unfinished. It gets worse. About two weeks ago, I was rocking my son to sleep and I started humming and then began singing the following line:

Oh, for a home with God, a place in his courts to rest;
Sure in a safe abode with Jesus and the blest;
Rest for a weary soul once redeemed by the Savior's love
Where I'll be pure and whole and live with my God above

That’s it. That is all I could remember and I had no idea where it came from so I sang it over and over again until he fell asleep. Later that afternoon as I was cleaning, it popped into my head again and I sang those same four lines over and over again. After a few days I felt like the song had taken up residence in my brain. While sitting in a staff meeting I tapped out the beat, while lying in bed I hummed and directed with my pointer finger, while taking a shower I sang, and on and on and on. This morning before church as it crept into my head again I became determined to figure out the rest of the song or at least the name of it. I searched and searched in the hymnal to no avail so I asked family members who also went straight to the hymnal without success. Finally this afternoon I “googled” the song and discovered everything I was missing; “Walking Alone At Eve”. You’d think the song would vacate my brain now…and you’d be wrong.

I have never been one who was particularly talented at scripture memory but a few years ago, a very dear friend and mentor of mine loaned me some scripture memory cds to help me develop the discipline of scripture memory. The cds took scripture and set them to music in a repetitive manner to aid in scripture memorization. I took one of the cds and listened to it while on a long drive from Los Angeles to San Francisco and while this particular set wasn’t very well made, it has been 7 years since I listened to that cd and I still recall every single scripture that I learned during the trip. For now, I choose to see this “affliction” of song as a blessing but will be visiting Forever Grateful Music and Scriptures To Go to purchase some more scripture memory cds to begin work on the next song that will be stuck in my head.

I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.
Psalm 119:11

Your thoughts?