Singing to a different tune – finding our purpose
We might feel as if others have been gifted with certain talents, while we’ve been passed by. But each one of us can be receptive to thoughts from God, showing us how we can express His beauty in ways that bless us and others.
My whole life I have loved singing. In my youth I joined choirs and took every opportunity to joyously sing my heart out! After a few months of singing in the college choir, though, the student who sat beside me turned to me one day and quietly asked if I realized that I could not carry a tune and should not be singing openly. Surprised and terribly embarrassed, I now realized why she had been avoiding me those many weeks.
While I knew my singing voice wasn’t that bad, I did begin to sing only in the privacy of my own home. My heart was deeply saddened that something I had such passion for was a talent I felt God had not given me.
Then I read a poem that spoke to my yearning heart and helped calm my desire for this specific talent. It says:
May I join your chorus?
Though I’m not one of your flock,
I am one of His!Your nature is to sing, I know,
But mine is too –
To sing praises to my Father,
To give thanks for His care.
To know, even yet
Before the light of dawn has broken, that
I am one of His!Perhaps I am in your chorus,
Or rather, His chorus,
And didn’t know it ... until Now.(Anna Marie Zeitlmann, “On waking to morning birdsongs,” Christian Science Sentinel, March 26, 1990)
To be “one of His” means that I am, you are, and everyone is God’s song – the purely harmonious expression of His all-harmonious nature. Our very being as God’s beloved child glorifies Him. And so it is very natural to sing praises to Him, as the poem implies. We can give thanks and trust in God’s care to reveal to each one of us our purpose.
This isn’t a blind faith, but a genuine conviction that we always have what we need because we express divine Spirit, God. Christ Jesus said, “Your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him” (Matthew 6:8).
Consequently, I have always turned to God for help in every need. So I knew that as I quieted the intense yearnings for this specific talent, I would naturally feel the presence of God’s gentle love and be receptive to His view of me as His beloved daughter, and discern His guidance.
One Sunday morning during the Christian Science church service I was attending, the soloist sang the Lord’s Prayer, which had been set to music. The beauty of her soprano voice and the spirit with which she sang touched my heart so deeply that tears of joyful gratitude flowed freely. However, deep within me a cry went out to my Father-Mother God, asking for help in understanding why I hadn’t been given a voice worthy of being heard.
Then, a tender angel message – a thought from God – quietly spoke to me, “My dear, all is well. You simply sing to a different tune.”
My prayer had been answered! Immediately, the void I had been feeling was gone, and I was filled with gratitude that I’d been healed of the disappointment I’d felt for so long. For the first time, I realized that God had given me a voice to sing! It simply was not in the way I had been thinking about it. I had been singing and praising God through my artwork.
It became clear that each work of art – each individual expression – “sings.” And each person’s divinely impelled contribution, in whatever form it takes, is a unique and important voice, singing its own song of praise to God.
In “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures” by Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of The Christian Science Monitor, we read, “Spirit, God, gathers unformed thoughts into their proper channels, and unfolds these thoughts, even as He opens the petals of a holy purpose in order that the purpose may appear” (p. 506). We all have something to share. And when we turn wholeheartedly to God to guide us, our purpose is clearly revealed, and each individual expression finds its proper place, blessing ourselves and others.
“I will praise the name of God with a song, and will magnify him with thanksgiving,” writes the Psalmist (Psalms 69:30). God’s presence and power give us the ability and reason to sing praise to Him with a joyful heart. This praise doesn’t need to come through literal singing. Heartfelt gratitude for God and His infinite expression can be conveyed in countless different ways.
We all sing to a different tune, and we can be sure that God’s gentle love will guide us in our songs. Each voice will ring loud and true to its purpose.