my-words-are-in-songs

“My whole life history, every event, person, place, time and thing – has a song attached to it.  Song is my native language.”

~Jeanie Rhoades, true story

So this was my just-before-waking dream this morning in the wee hours:

I was in a car on a bright, blue-sky day with a little girl.  She had a dark complexion with deep set, beautiful brown eyes and a chubby face framed with raven-black hair.  I think she was about 11 and I was fervently trying to get her to make an important decision, as important as life itself, as we drove in circles around some European town square (I guess Europe because the steering wheel was on the right).

I was saying to her: You have to decide the words in your hard-back book.  You have to see them and figure out what is there then you will know everything you need to for the rest of your life, but as long as you can’t see them, you’ll ever know.  What words are there?  What do they say and how are they written?  They are already there – look!

She would falter and seemed nervous, afraid to make a wrong move.  But I urged her on:  It is like a novel and this is your story, your novel.  What is in there?  What do you see in your book?  You have to find this out so you’ll know just what to do.

She was unsure.  She hem-hawed.  Then I remember feeling a pang of guilt, thinking to myself,  I never even found out what was in my book.  I never found out what my words were.  I don’t know my own answers…Still I knew that the story was already there, waiting to be discovered.

Yet, still, perhaps even driven by the fact that I didn’t know my own words, didn’t know the eternal story or what the type and font looked like in my own book, I all the more encouraged her to look, really look, really find out…

Suddenly she burst into tears of great relief said, “It’s songs – my words are in songs.  That is what is in my hard-cover book!”

In my dream, I hugged her little neck and by now we were on a soft carnival ride going in circles in that same town square, sort of flying gently through the air.  And in the dream, the second she said it, I realized that those were the words in my book, too – as if when she said it everything in my heart and soul suddenly bore witness, and had understanding.  When she said “the words in my hard-cover book are songs” I started crying, I burst into tears.

Me too, I excitedly realized, that is what my book is, too.  It is song.  My hard-bound book is written in melody!  Me, too!!

I was crying so hard in my dream, I woke up with tears in my eyes.  It was joyful, an amazing realization.

Dreams are so funny.

It was so vivid and intense.  Yet so full of holes, reality wobbly.  Then when you write it, it is like what??  It is making me laugh to re-read this.  But it also is making me think of book titles I could write

  • My Life is an Old, Red Hymnal {I grew up C of G where the red hymnal not only ruled, it caused plenty of feuding, haha.  But its’ pages paper the walls of my memory.}.
  • Whatever it Takes {the Lanny Wolfe song I sang a lot at age 14 – words so strongly indicative of my gritted-teeth determination to prove I could be what God wanted.  A million times since, I have proven that I could not do whatever it ook and that it has all been by His faithfulness}
  • My Desire {from my 1975-1977 singing, “It’s My Desire” – another loud, intense anthem declaring my life intent to follow and wholly live for Jesus}

Maybe I will write all these stories someday…in hardback editions.

SONG FOR A SUNDAY

My little sister sent this to me again recently.  It was good to hear again.

5 thoughts on “my-words-are-in-songs

  1. LOVE this post. Isn’t music the memory-maker for so many of us? It was amazing to me at the Amy Grant concert how many vivid, vivid memories were attached to each one of her songs. As I sang along to the words I had no idea how I remembered, there was a moving-picture show in my brain, and the images were so clear. It was like it was just yesterday. And then this Sunday, we sang Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing and I swear I could SMELL the red hymnal we used to sing from. How His kindness yet pursues me… :)

    1. Oooooh-Stephanie, I know! I LOVE your comment right back! The whole song thing is, well, important to me. And why I have always loved the song of Moses in Deut 32. He teaches the people the song and then tells the people to take the words to heart for “they are not just idle words for you… they are your life!” Song is from God. I believe it!

  2. Not sure why but your post made me cry. Lately among other things like write, dance, run…Father has been telling me to sing. I almost laughed like Sarah. I’m not really a singer but I do sing at church with everyone else and I sing to my grandbaby and on my bus with my little special ed children who don’t know I can’t sing. But in the other leading I’ve been shown He threw in “sing”. Hmmm Gotta think on this more. I love your dream. I love the red back hymnal too. When I get in a bad spot a song from it will float through my mind comforting or encouraging.
    Also He told me to write and to write stories etc but also to write rhymes and rhythms. I also found this odd. I’m not a song writer at all. But I have made up songs for each member of our family. But maybe it is more like the rhymes of our lives, the rhythms of our day in/day out lives. Jeanie, you write in rhymes and rhythms. hmmmm You have made me think again. Thanks and thanks for letting me reason this out here.
    Okay, I have a question. How do you stay motivated to do this. Or is it such a passion you can’t NOT do it?

    1. Hmm…maybe you saw young Donna in the little girl. I am glad it touched you. It got to me, too, so there must be something there for us, right? :) I will email you.

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