Music Testimony

written for adult choir at my church; each week someone is featured on the back of the rehearsal notes, for a getting-to-know-you kind of thing.


I grew up attending Liberty Manor Baptist, in Liberty, where my mom plays the piano and my dad sings in the choir. Music was never a choice for me—it’s my default setting. I mean, as small children my brother and I played with Mr. Potato Heads under the piano while my mom gave lessons.

I started taking piano lessons from my mom the summer before kindergarten. I switched to violin in fifth grade—piano skips a generation, I’ve heard?—and was involved in school orchestra, choir, and musicals for the rest of my Liberty career.

Meanwhile, I’d given my life to Christ as a child and I joined church choir in eighth or ninth grade. After some personnel upheaval, I found myself called to be interim minister of music for six months when I was sixteen. It was inevitable, really; both my parents had done it in the past! Although I had little responsibility beyond leading music on Sunday mornings, the ministry role was a tremendous opportunity for me to serve my church and the Lord at a young age.

My personal definition of music as worship occurred around that time. My school choir sang a gorgeous arrangement of “How Can I Keep from Singing?” I know it’s incredibly cliché, but that’s exactly what it is for me—how could I not? “No storm can shake my inmost calm while to that rock I’m clinging; since I believe that love abides how can I keep from singing?” Or, for an alternative perspective on the theme, “if every tongue were still the noise would still continue, the rocks and stones themselves would start to sing!” (Jesus Christ Superstar paraphrase of Luke 19:40.)

I moved to Springfield for college and soon thereafter started attending FBC. Nowadays I help with Children’s Choir, play in the orchestra, and hang out here in choir, of course. While I never could have done music as a career—um, the reason Mom quit giving me piano lessons was because I have a tendency not to practice—it is as natural a part of my life as laughing. And praise God for giving us so much to sing about—honestly, how could I keep from singing?