I sing with my speech kids nearly every day. The rhythm and rhyme reach different parts of their brains and help most of them grasp new concepts more easily. We rap vocabulary words and definitions, tap out syllables (re-frig-er-a-tor), and sing goofy songs about plants and animals or how much we like sandwiches. One of my favorite ditties is a little poem written by Rose Fyleman called “Singing Time”. I made up a tune to it and taught it to my kiddos. It goes like this:
“I wake in the morning early/And always the very first thing/I poke out my head/I sit up in bed/And I sing, and I sing, and I sing.”
My little guys love the song, but to tell you the truth, when I wake in the morning early and poke out my head, my natural response is not to burst forth in a (scratchy, morning voice) melody. My first reaction is to moan, and to moan, and to moan. That’s why my alarm is set to play Robert Lowry’s beautiful hymn “How Can I Keep From Singing?” in a version sung by James Loynes. These are the words to the first two verses:
“My life flows on in endless song/Above earth’s lamentation/I hear the sweet, tho’ far-off hymn/That hails a new creation;/Thro’ all the tumult and the strife/I hear the music ringing;/It finds an echo in my soul,/How can I keep from singing?
“What tho’ my joys and comforts die?/The Lord my Saviour liveth;/What tho’ the darkness gather round?/Songs in the night he giveth./No storm can shake my inmost calm/While to that Refuge clinging;/Since Christ is Lord of heaven and earth,/How can I keep from singing?”
Since I have a gradual alarm, in which the volume increases slowly over a couple minutes, I usually awaken in the middle of the second verse, so my first conscious thought most days is that Christ is Lord of heaven and earth. What an amazing truth to think of right as I start off – he is Lord of today! He is Lord of the joy I will face, of the challenges, of the expected, of the unexpected. He is sovereign over all.
With him on my mind, how CAN I keep from singing (even with that rusty voice)?
Made for Eternity 