"How Can I Keep From Singing?"

When the Facebook "25 things" lists hit the scene months ago, I never wrote one (out of stubbornness, really) but mentally made one of things I might hypothetically put on it. One little-known fact I discovered about myself is that I ALWAYS have a song in my head. Sometimes these songs make it from my head to breaking out in song! And when people are talking, if a phrase they say is a line from a song, that song pops into my head. I never realized this about myself until recently... for example...

Student: "Mrs. Scoonover, isn't the sun a big star?"
My brain: intro Kenny Chesney's hit, "She's a big star at Banana Joe's bar where she sang karaoke every night..."

This truly plagues me, so much so that some songs stick for days even weeks, like the hymn "How Can I Keep From Singing?" I heard it when seated in the pew of my new church home in Thomasville, Georgia. (If this is news... read the below post, "Timothy is a pastor!") The choir sang it as the anthem during the 11:00am service. I sat there in the pew and wept because this is the story of my life, especially recently. Through this transitional time in my life, God is constant. My Creator is the "sweet though far off hymn" in my soul. And whatever I face in the coming months, from finishing up my teaching job here in Mass to moving into a whole new community in Georgia, I know that I can cling to him, for "the peace of Christ makes fresh my heart." What's more is that as I sat at the spring chorus concert of my students, I heard these words again as the chorale sang this hymn = weeping once again. If you know me at all, you'll know that transitions are very difficult for me... even if they are extremely happy ones! So, as the countdown begins to the end of one chapter and the start of another... how can I keep from singing? :)

"My life flows on in endless song;
Above earth’s lamentation
I hear the sweet though far off hymn
That hails a new creation:
Through all the tumult and the strife
I hear the music ringing;
It finds an echo in my soul—
How can I keep from singing?

What though my joys and comforts die?
The Lord my Savior liveth;
What though the darkness gather round!
Songs in the night He giveth:
No storm can shake my inmost calm
While to that refuge clinging;
Since Christ is Lord of Heav’n and earth,
How can I keep from singing?

I lift mine eyes; the cloud grows thin;
I see the blue above it;
And day by day this pathway smoothes
Since first I learned to love it:
The peace of Christ makes fresh my heart,
A fountain ever springing:
All things are mine since I am His—
How can I keep from singing?"

-Ashley