Power of Music

Today I'm sitting at home on my last day off for recovery from a very minor surgery listening to Pandora. I am suddenly hit with the realization that music has a power that I hadn't given much thought to.

A song would come on and my mind would immediately transport me to another time and place in my life. It most often transports me to a time early in my life before I was married, before I had any children. I heard a song from the late 90s and I was transported back to high school when some of the guys from the basketball team I was on would get together early on Saturday mornings and play some pick games.

My brother and I would some times stay the night at one our friends house from the team and then head out to this church with a basketball court at about 8 am. We would listen to rock n' roll on the way there. Rock n' roll music was not allowed in my parents house so we found other means of listening to it. I don't even remember the name of the song, but I get transported back to the first (or one of the first) times I heard it. It was in the parking lot of that Baptist church with a basketball court.

I sometimes will hear an old hymn that has been reworked to be more contemporary. Hearing that tune transports me back to the second pew on the right side of the church that I grew up in. Again, my brother and I would be singing the songs and making up our own words or trying to sing way too low for our vocal ranges.

Just now a song came on called Remedy by The David Crowder Band. It takes me right back to a day when I was super nervous because I was interviewing for a worship leader position at a church in Belding, MI. I was super excited, and super unsure of what I was doing. Renee and I were thinking of up rooting where we were and moving to a small town to lead music at a small church. It didn't work out, but I can relive the whole event just by hearing that one song.

Music has a way of getting us through tough times. I will hear a song that helped me through a very depressing time as a teenager and it will take me right back there and I can see how God used that one song to bring me through that awful time.

One of my favorite songs by a fairly unknown Christian punk band got me through a time when I felt completely alone. I hung out with my friends almost every night, but it didn't matter, I felt like they didn't want me there or care about me. The song is called Every New Day by Five Iron Frenzy. I remember one time when I was feeling so alone and unwanted and I was listening to this song super loud and I was singing at the top of my lungs in my car as I pulled into a friends driveway. When I finally got into his house he said, “man, you were really jammin out for a minute there”.

I don't care what kind of music you listen to, there is something about notes put together to form a song that causes healing in the human soul. I am so thankful for music. 

If you need to reminisce about your life just turn on some music. You will be transported to times you may have forgotten that you lived through.