They Sang an Old Song in Church Today

The choir sang an old song in church today. I have played and sung it many times. But today, the memories came back in a flood.

More than 60 years ago now, I was probably about five or six years old. We had recently started going to the little Friends Church in Sebring, Ohio, on old Quaker Hill. In the late 1940s, the church was formed and they had repurposed an old one-room schoolhouse that my Grandfather Heacock had attended when he was a boy in the first decade of the 20th century. Dad found the Lord under the ministry of Rev. William Atchison.

Dad loved music. He had a Gibson guitar that he probably bought in the '40s, but I suppose he always wanted to learn to play the piano. So, he took the plunge and purchased a brand new Wurlitzer Spinet. I don't know the hows and whys, and as far as I know he never took a piano lesson from anyone. But he did teach himself using the Pointer System. It was mostly about playing the melody of a tune with the right hand and playing a bass note and chords with the left. I'm sure Dad learned to play several songs that way but I only remember him playing the old Fanny Crosby song  the choir sang this morning:

I am Thine, O Lord, I have heard Thy voice,
And it told Thy love to me;
But I long to rise in the arms of faith,
And be closer drawn to Thee.

Refrain:
Draw me nearer, nearer, nearer, blessed Lord,
To the cross where Thou hast died;
Draw me nearer, nearer, nearer, blessed Lord,
To Thy precious, bleeding side.

Finding the Lord changed the direction of my Dad's--and his family's--life. You would have to know where he came from. It wasn't pretty. I don't know why he played this old song so much. Maybe it was easy.  Maybe it was the first one he learned. As I reminisce on other favorites of his and his life, I credit it to the lyrics. I do believe he tried to live those lyrics as best he could.

He's been gone now--more than ten years. But, I still see him at that piano and strumming his Gibson in memory's eye. I hear him singing with memory's ear. The old Gibson stands in a corner in our bedroom and the Wurlitzer Spinet is still in the family--with my sister, Judy. I'd like to tell you she stole if from me, but that would be a lie. But those of you who know me as a musician are aware by now that Wurlitzer changed my life.

And that's another story.

Consecrate me now to Thy service, Lord,
By the pow’r of grace divine;
Let my soul look up with a steadfast hope,
And my will be lost in Thine. [Refrain]

Oh, the pure delight of a single hour
That before Thy throne I spend,
When I kneel in prayer, and with Thee, my God,
I commune as friend with friend! [Refrain]

There are depths of love that I cannot know
Till I cross the narrow sea;
There are heights of joy that I may not reach
Till I rest in peace with Thee. [Refrain]