I was thinking today that music and my memories are very intertwined. I used to be haunted by the song 'Nothing Will Ever Be The Same Again'. It was during listening to that song that I realised quite how ill I was, how, for better or worse I had been irrevocably changed. I sang that song at Church the other night and I felt like it wasn't haunting me anymore. It was just a painful memory - not a reality. Nothing is the same because God came, thats what the song says. I used to think it meant that because I had been ill once, I would always be. I thought that until this past couple of months when I have been happy and (dare I say it) getting better. Singing that song, as praise to God and as service to him and Church, lessened the pain it used to bring near when I heard it. I'm trying to change that pain into a blessing to others...and, after all, that is what I have wanted all these years. To make what I have gone through, am going through, worth the struggle so that it can be used to show people, just a little bit of God's amazing grace and love.
Music is an incredibly emotive thing. It can whisk you away to a memory of years ago and land you in the same moods as you felt at the time associated with the piece.
ReplyDeleteHence we have such a responsibility with music in the church not to manipulate people's emotions away from the Gospel...