Interviewing Johnny and Stacey Donaldson for our cover story.
What ‘song’ is stuck in your head?
I’ve written before about how God spoke to me during my senior year of college, when I was questioning everything about Christianity. He spoke through the Bible and through trusted believers. He also used music, and not just KLOVE.
For instance, on Christmas Day that year, my brother turned on “Wild Horses” by The Rolling Stones.
The second verse says, “Graceless lady, you know who I am / You know I can’t let you slide through my hand,” followed by the chorus: “Wild horses couldn’t drag me away / Wild, wild horses couldn’t drag me away.”
To be clear, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards were not writing this song as God speaking to a fearful young woman. But God used the lyrics above to speak directly to my heart. I only wish they’d stayed stuck in my head for the next five months.
Has a song ever impacted you like that?
Or, do you have one playing on loop in your mind right now? Maybe not even a meaningful one, but an earworm that won’t go away?
Happy Father’s Day to my dad, who has a habit of pointing me to good songs!
Just as a song gets stuck in your head, assumptions about reality can often lodge themselves in our brains without our permission. Not all of these assumptions are true or pleasant. For instance:
- I’ll never get caught up on everything I need to do.
- I’m a terrible parent.
- Today is shot, so there’s no point in trying to make it better.
We might not verbalize these statements, but how often do we believe them? How often does our mind just let a song in, without realizing it’s a funeral dirge?
In order to get rid of the false and unhelpful “songs” in our heads, we’ve got to learn better songs, and repeat them till they start playing by default. But how do we do that?
The short answer is, get to know God through His Word, prayer, and Christian community. Maybe you’re already doing those things but could use more specific help. I have two recommendations:
1) Read Ginny Owens’ new book, “Singing in the Dark.”
2) Come to our Fear to Faith Women’s Retreat on Saturday, Oct. 30, and hear Ginny speak and sing in person!
If you read our Author Q&A with Ginny last month, you know she grew up in Jackson and is a Christian singer-songwriter, as well as an author and speaker. Blind since age 3, she attended both Murrah High School and the Mississippi School for the Blind.
But Ginny’s book isn’t just about physical blindness. Instead, the book takes us on a tour of different songs, prayers and laments from the Bible, and shows us how biblical people “sang” to God in seasons of spiritual and emotional darkness.
As I prepared to interview Ginny about the book, I looked at her website and noticed a list of topics she often speaks about. One of the topics was “Love Be the Loudest — Hearing God’s Voice Above the Noise.”
This was exactly what I wanted us to learn about at our next women’s retreat, and I still needed a keynote speaker and worship leader. Thank You, God! More details about the retreat will be forthcoming, but ladies, go ahead and save the date for Saturday, Oct. 30!
In the meantime, check out Ginny’s book, and above all, seek God in His Word and in prayer. Try memorizing verses that remind you of heavenly realities so you can fix your eyes on Christ and not your circumstances.
Here’s a verse I read yesterday and need to memorize (broken up to emphasize how POWERFUL each phrase is!):
“But now thus saith the LORD
that created thee, O Jacob,
and he that formed thee, O Israel,
Fear not:
for I have redeemed thee,
I have called thee by thy name,
thou art mine.”
– Isaiah 43:1, KJV.
I hope Mississippi Christian Living also gives you positive “songs” on which to meditate. Here are some I’m excited about:
- Johnny and Stacey Donaldson went from plastic dining room furniture to visiting the Rose Garden — and they give God all the glory.
- Yes, God can use your grief.
- God brought Matt and Stacey Ayars from Haiti to Mississippi, and they’re still on mission.
