It is a peaceful Sunday afternoon here. We are wrapped in a world of white, snug in our house surrounded by the first snow of the season - whirling, whipping, gusting, drifting snow. I'm sure by next April the sight will not be quite so amazing and perhaps more depressing than cozy, but for now it creates an effect of quietness and insulation - perfect for a Sunday at home with the family.
With General Conference last weekend, and Stake Conference this weekend, I've certainly had many things on my mind. Thoughts of charity, of the Savior, of my calling, of my weaknesses and efforts to improve. Thoughts of how to open my heart and life more fully to the grace our Savior extends so mercifully and immediately. Thoughts of how to apply the gospel to my family, to raise up my little one(s) in truth and righteousness, to make my home a haven of peace and love. Sweet touches of the Spirit, sometimes little pricks of conscience, and over all, a yearning in my heart to draw nearer to my Lord again and walk in the meekness of his light.
I sat at the piano as we hung up the phone after listening to our Stake Conference, and while Nate danced with Eden, I had a few moments to play and sing the hymns. Soon we noticed that Eden's eyes were drooping, and rather than interrupt the serenity, I just made her a naptime bottle, and Nate sat on the couch rocking her while I extended my few moments into nearly half an hour. (Its amazing how difficult it is to even play one song without someone else to occupy my little girl! She wants to be in the middle of it all, playing and turning pages, or have us be all done, all together!) They went upstairs to lay down, and I was left to play and ponder.
I truly do love to sing, and to play the piano, and the hymns are a special part of that experience. "
The song of the righteous is a prayer unto me," the Lord has told us, and while I may vary in my particular righteousness, when I sing and play the hymns mindfully, it is a prayer, it rises from my heart in an especially meaningful way. I love to sing all the verses most of the time, because all of the words have meaning. For me, the hymns are at once a plea rising from my heart and an admonition to it, a prayer and a comforting, a reminder and a teaching moment, as near to a face-to-face moment with my Heavenly Father as any other time I can think of in my life.
I remember, as a young teen, first becoming aware of the fact that I would never be perfect on my own. Realizing, as I sat out in the golden fields behind my parents house and contemplated the light of a clear, warm sunset, that I was basically a sinner and that all my efforts to be what I should be just weren't enough. It seems, perhaps, a bit melodramatic, but really it was the realization of my need for a Savior. I remember feeling kind of hopeless, like Satan had already won because no matter how I tried I couldn't do it all right, even being raised in the gospel and knowing about Jesus Christ all my life, and loving Heavenly Father, and having felt his love so frequently and deeply. The light faded, and I went inside and sat at the piano and flipped through the music there, the house around me bustling at first with all the going-to-bed busyness of little kids and gradually growing darker and quieter. Hymn #85, How Firm a Foundation, came to my mind, and I opened to it and began to sing and play. The last verse changed my life at that point.
The soul that on Jesus hath leaned for repose, I will not, I cannot desert to his foes.
That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake,
I'l never, no never, no never forsake.
My whole understanding of the Atonement opened up then, and the peace and hope that grew in my heart were the greatest blessing I could have ever received.
A few years later, I sat on my room mate's bed in our dorm room after work and puzzled over a short note telling me to call home as soon as I got in. I called, and received the devastating and unexpected news of my dear brother's death. As soon as I hung up the phone, I couldn't breathe, I couldn't think, I literally felt as if my world was shattering and turning like a kaleidoscope. So far away from my family, in Hawaii, I felt my heartstrings snapping. Some dear friends, sisters really, came and sat with me as we waited for a member of our bishopric to come and give me a blessing. We went into the lounge to wait, and I couldn't talk, I couldn't sit in silence, my mind was whirling dizzy with thoughts of every kind, and all I could do was sit down at the piano and play the hymns. When the RA's kicked us out because of the lateness of the hour, my dear friends went with me to the music labs, still open for practicing music majors (which I was not), and sat with me til they too closed. Somehow playing those hymns kept my hold on sanity and a small measure of peace, a reassurance of my Father's love and his merciful plan of redemption for all his children, and a grounding anchor to those things I did know in such turmoil of what I did not.
Again, after losing our precious first baby, we drove home in mostly exhausted silence. Once home, our house seemed empty and quiet. What to do now... the surreal bubble surrounding me, the isolation and shock and disbelief left me without an independent mind, almost. I sat down at the piano and began to play. I remember Nate standing behind me, tears on his cheeks, as I sang "Abide with Me." I didn't cry during that song, but I was singing it with all my heart to my Lord, pleading with him that he be with me now because I felt so utterly lost and alone. I sang another song, and the words "I shall rejoice in time" choked in my throat as my grief almost drowned my faith in that promise. Yet still I sang, because clinging to that promise was all I could do. Later, after several months had passed, craziness filled my head and threatened to "drag me down to the gulf of misery and endless wo." Literally. I chose not to give in, but I sat, mentally and emotionally and spiritually paralyzed, at the edge of that pit, til a particular Sunday afternoon of singing and playing the hymns softened my frozen heart and let a measure of healing faith and love seep in through the darkness, as tears made distorted lenses of my eyes and splashed with fat wetness on my hands and wrists.
I thought I could never be happy again, at least not fully so. (In fact, when Elder Bowen spoke on Sunday, during this General Conference, all I could think was, "Please, don't talk about this! Please, just don't talk about it. The tears and pain and sorrow, and fear for this new baby, swept over me anew, and I realized again that only Heaven will heal this loss fully.) Yet, skipping ahead just over a year from that time of loss and sorrow, I was again sitting at the piano. This time, however, we were in Alabama, and though I played the same songs and Nate again stood behind me with tears on his cheeks, our circumstances could not have been more different. This time, our precious little Eden, healthy and whole, was cradled in her daddy's arms, and as I played I began to cry because I felt the miracle of healing where I had not expected it. Without negating our earlier loss and sorrow, I was suddenly overcome with a fullness of joy such as I had never felt. It was as if a piece of the celestial kingdom was wrapped around us and all things were made right, though they were not yet. I cannot fully describe the blessing of that moment.
These moments came back to me vividly as I sat at our piano just now, and others, perhaps not so dramatic, but still so valuable as small and tender mercies. I am so thankful for the hymns of Zion, and the power that is within them. I am so thankful for parents who sacrificed and encouraged and enforced and brought me up to play the piano and to value music. I am so thankful for a husband who also encourages me, and who has made every effort to provide me with a piano to play in every one of our homes - even here in Alaska. It is a blessing to me.
