I’m driving along, singing loudly with one of my favorite songs, when I hear a little voice rise from the back seat. I turn the music down and glance in my rear view mirror as I ask her to repeat herself.
“I was asking you what this song is about. What’s she singing about?”
I smile. I smile because my little girl is growing up, realizing that songs aren’t just noise but are stories set to music. I smile because she is curious about the world around her. And most of all, I smile because the song she is asking about – the song she just witnessed her mama singing with so passionately – is safe. It is safe for her ears to hear and for her heart to absorb. It is safe for her to know about and sing along with.
As her mama, I am rarely more happy than this moment. I am happy because I can honestly say, “Sweetheart, this song is about Jesus and how He loves us so perfectly – so much better than anyone else can. And that lady is singing because singing…well, that’s how she loves Him back.”
In the mirror I see her nod as she turns back to watch the road blur by her window. Her far-off stare is hard to decipher, but I know that somewhere in there her mind is soaking in the truth of what I have just told her. Somewhere – on some level – she is understanding that this faith thing….this Jesus we are always talking about…..this love we are trying to instill in her for Him….she is learning that it is real. It is real and true and something to live and experience. She is learning that it’s not something we only do on Sunday morning, and it’s not confined to the pastel-colored walls of the preschool Sunday school room. She is learning – behind that stare and nod – that Christ is a “here and now” kind of God.
That’s the power of Christian music, and that is why I eagerly support Christian radio. Every time we get into the car, my little girl hears adults (other than Mommy and Daddy and Ms. Nan and Ms. Vickie) loving on Jesus. She gets to see one of the ways I experience God’s presence the most. She gets to see faith in action and learns how to do it herself. To back it up a little, she sees that faith IS something you do…something you experience. It’s not static and unchanging, or lifeless words on a page. It’s real living.
Christian music has made a world of difference for me. I can’t understate the impact it has has on my journey with depression and anxiety and my broader experience of everyday life. It has saved my life, I believe, on more than one occasion in more than one way. That should be enough for me to rally behind and rave on about the importance of Christian radio ministry. Helping me, though, isn’t enough. Helping my daughter and other kids like her to find Jesus in everyday moments? That is something I can get behind. That is something I have to tell other people about. That is something I’ll commit part of our meager monthly budget to. That is something I believe in.
The song I was singing with was Francesca Battistelli’s “Strangely Dim”. I heard it on Air1.