While attending a congregation that was not my own, I had the opportunity to sit by a woman who explained to me that she was new to the congregation and had spent many years away from church activity.  She held a manual in her lap, “Healing through the Savior, The Addiction Recovery Program” and shared that she had been on a difficult road to recovery.  As the opening hymn was announced, she and I shared a hymn book, during the sacrament hymn, she closed her eyes and hummed.  

 

As the organ began the closing song I knew well, she did not pick up the hymn book.  To my surprise and delight though, we sat side by side and sang all four verses together closing with the exultant chorus, “Hosanna, Hosanna to God and the Lamb, Let glory to Them in the highest be given.  Henceforth and forever, Amen and Amen.”  After the prayer, I leaned over to share how much I enjoyed singing with her and asked if she could read the hymn book from the pew in front of us.  She smiled and recounted the faith of her grandparents who she noted had helped to raise her.  “They devoted their lives to the gospel of Jesus Christ,” she told me, “I know the hymns.”

 

We sing with joy, we sing in our sorrow, we sing and feel the love of God.  She knew the hymns which “invite the Spirit of the Lord, create a feeling of reverence…move us to repentance and good works, build testimony and faith, comfort the weary, console the mourning, and inspire us to endure to the end.” (Hymns of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, preface). 

 

“Lift up your voice, lift up your voice, lift up your voice and sing.” (Richard C. Berg, Children’s Songbook)