Music Paves the Way to Prayer--and God

Jonathan and I have been grateful recently for the unusual instrument that I play, considering my inability to play other instruments very well. All my sisters and some of my daughters play piano, and some family play so many instruments. But when it comes to going into a home where a friend's mother is about to make the crossing to the Other Side, I am grateful for the simple little instrument called an autoharp.

The brother of our friend keeps asking the name of the instrument, and we tell him. For five days in a row we've been going up to sing for his Christian mother. Every day is thought to surely be her last, and extended family gathered in--only to wait, and wait.

That's when the autoharp came in handy. Jonathan and I drove up Saturday with the zucchini bread Hannah had made and a meatloaf, and we sang about an hour. We just paged through the hymnal and sang while various family members kept coming in to check on the mother or to just stand her bedside a while and monitor her oxygen. 

"What a Friend We Have in Jesus"

"The Old Rugged Cross" 

"My Jesus I Love Thee"

"Gentle Shepherd"

Over the last few days we've sung dozens of hymns, songs, and choruses as family members worked through all sorts of emotions.

"There's Not a Friend Like the Lowly Jesus"

"He Leadeth Me"

"When I am Afraid, I Will Trust in God"

"Jesus, What a Friend for Sinners"

"God Will Take Care of You"

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 No one seemed to know what to say or do, and we didn't either.

So with the autoharp, we just sat singing as the life of a weak and helpless friend, who had spent the last year almost completely bedfast, drew near its sunset.

Sisters older than she sat grieving, wiping tears, while many in the family were stressed with family issues.

But as the autoharp strummed, calm seemed to settle in the household.  

I thought of the quote by William Congreve, 'Music has charms to soothe a savage breast."

We strummed, sang, and saw how the gift of God-inspired hymns and songs in a lowly room by a sufferer's bedside

brought peace and focus where there had been strife and misery.

We also watched how music paved the way to prayer. After finishing singing today for the fifth day in a row, Jonathan and I prayed with our friend, and then quoted the Lord's Prayer together. I told our friend that the Lord had forgiven her sins, and I felt sure there was a response.  

Together we watched for a few moments at her bedside, watching the oxygen level drop and then climb again, as the two sisters and another lady returned to the room.

"We need prayer," the one sister said, and so we offered to pray. As Jonathan prayed, I held his hand with one of mine, laying my other hand on the hand of a sister. As Jonathan prayed, I sensed another relative coming into the room, and looked up to see her clasping my elbow, wanting desperately to be in on the prayer time in a tangible way.

It was a precious moment, watching how music made way for prayer, and then prayer made way for a soul to draw near to God, desiring to touch Him even as she was touching me. 

In those moments, as Jonathan's gentle and quiet voice prayed, the room that had been filled with grief made way for peace.

And God drew near.