Choir Singer Focus - Jean Hope

I don’t remember a time when I didn’t sing. My father was a professional musician, and my mother and three older siblings all sang. I thought everyone sat around the piano in the evenings and sang together in harmony. The first time I sang in public, I was 7 and I sang with my sisters in three-part harmony at the Musician’s Union picnic in Cleveland. The audience didn’t pay much attention, but I was smitten with the thrill of singing in harmony about thoughts and emotions that I didn’t have the words to express. I felt my soul soaring with the song and for the next 50 years I felt that same thrill as we sang at weddings, funerals, service organizations, parties and dance recitals (our dance teacher took one look at our dancing and said you three can sing).

Music, especially singing, is the vehicle to experience and enhance every human emotion and situation you encounter as you go through your life. It provides a theme song for every joy, sorrow, challenge and success you could ever have.
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I recently discovered a song by Lauren Daigle called “You Say”. Every morning I ask Alexa to play this prayer and meditation that reminds me that I am loved and supported by God who knows me better than I know myself. The words are “You say I am loved when I don’t feel a thing. You say I am strong when I think I am weak. I believe, I believe what you say of me.” I sing along with the words and begin and end my day with this declaration of faith and gratitude for the joy of creation and the many wonderful people I have to share it with.

You don’t have to be a good singer to experience the uplifting joy and comfort that music provides. You just have to be willing to throw yourself into the experience.

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