The Reason My Heart Sings

Isn't it funny the things that bring us comfort in life? I was sitting here thinking of what I would write about today and as I mulled over the days events I decided to turn on the tv and see what was on. To my pleasant surprise one of the things on tv was the movie The Sound of Music. It's been a favorite of mine ever since I can remember....some of my earliest memories in fact, include sitting with my parents on their bed, eating dinner and watching The Sound of Music together. Back then it was normal for certain movies to be on tv every single year, and without fail this one always aired around Easter. I remember that little detail vividly because the windows in our home were usually open and the fresh smell of new Spring growth filled the air of our rooms and I always imagined it was how the air smelled in the mountains. I remember when I would see the scenes of Maria singing and dancing in the mountaintop fields a feeling of total peace and happiness would overtake me. For weeks I would spin around my grandmother's backyard or my bedroom singing the title song over and over and over again.....probably until my parents wanted to strangle Rodgers and Hammerstein.

The lyrics that made my heart sing as a child were these.....as you read them, you may understand why I couldn't help but sing everytime I heard them. Even now I can't help but sing along in my head as I read them.

The hills are alive with the sound of music

With songs they have sung for a thousand years
The hills fill my heart with the sound of music
My heart wants to sing every song it hears
My heart wants to beat like the wings of the birds
that rise from the lake to the trees
My heart wants to sigh like a chime that flies
from a church on a breeze
To laugh like a brook when it trips and falls over
stones on its way
To sing through the night like a lark who is learning to pray
I go to the hills when my heart is lonely
I know I will hear what I've heard before
My heart will be blessed with the sound of music
And I'll sing once more

Years later as I was going through a particularly difficult time those lyrics resonated on a deeper level to me. I remember lying across the bed, brokenheated and down and yet again on the television was The Sound of Music. I remember watching it and listening to the all familiar words and suddenly the last four lines grabbed me like they had never grabbed me before.

I go to the hills when my heart is lonely
I know I will hear what I've heard before
My heart will be blessed with the sound of music
And I'll sing once more

I remember when I heard Psalm 121 read for the first time I envisioned those majestic Swiss Alps from the Sound of Music. For years it was just a mental picture of what the hills would look like....but that day when I needed to hear God speak to me.....He used the lyrics of a song to remind me of His word.

Psalm 121 (New King James Version)
1 I will lift up my eyes to the hills—from whence comes my help?
2 My help comes from the LORD,who made heaven and earth.
3 He will not allow your foot to be moved; He who keeps you will not slumber.
4 Behold, He who keeps Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.
5 The LORD is your keeper; the LORD is your shade at your right hand.
6 The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night.
7 The LORD shall preserve you from all evil; He shall preserve your soul.
8 The LORD shall preserve your going out and your coming in from this time forth, and even forevermore.

That day I realized that there IS music in my heart...there IS music in my soul....but it's not the lyrics to a song....it's the written word of my God and the gentle pull of His spirit in mine....He is the music my heart hears, and He is the reason my heart sings. Now what used to just be a song has become a reminder of the real sound of music that I hear when I go to the hills for His help.