You thought
I was joking before. Right? About my soft spot for good ole’ Christian
music? I’m not. I adore praise music!! Love it.
I’m talking
Michael W. Smith, Amy Grant (before she became a heathen lol), DC Talk etc.
etc. That’s some good stuff yo. And I had a major crush on Amy Grant. :)
When I was a
young co-ed on my own in Colorado I was a proud member of Athletes in Action
and Campus Crusade for Christ. I was
also a member of the campus gospel choir.
Every
Thursday night CCC met and always began with a ton of singing. I adored those songs!! “All in All”, “Our God is an Awesome God”, "El Shaddai",“As
the Deer”. I know some of you are
already humming along. This stuff speaks
to me. The lyrics are something I can believe
in. Not necessarily the people singing
along, but the words, in their simplicity, are how I felt about God. How I feel about God.
In those
lyrics there’s nothing that says, “God loves you…if you’re straight” or “Only
Christians will get to heaven”. Well,
not in any of the songs I remember.
When I sang
in the choir…THAT was my church. Hearing
all of our voices coming together was the best high imaginable. It didn’t matter what we looked like, who we
loved or where we were from. In those
moments we were celebrating our love for God.
And it was beautiful.
During this
time I was also coming out. Yay! I knew what the devout AiA and CCC people
thought about the gays. I knew that some
of them were so uber “Christian” that they didn’t even listen to secular
music. But I still came out to them, and,
of course, was no longer welcomed to the Thursday night meetings.
I stopped
singing those songs.
A couple of
years later I met my first real girlfriend.
One of the things that drew me to her was that she identified as a
Christian. She played guitar (another
draw) and together we sang the songs that I loved. She introduced me to DC Talk and I fell more
in love with her and the music.
Now, old and
jaded, I’m still moved when I hear these songs.
And every now and then I still sing them. My love for God has never changed, even
though my club memberships have.
3 comments:
I'd totally forgotten about El Shaddai. I love it - thank you for the reminder.
I love el shaddai. but not much more :)
Sometimes I read your posts and shake my head in awe. Amy Grant's Heart in Motion record came out the year before Shell & I started dating (when we were "just friends"). She was familiar with Amy's Christian music and introduced me to it. I quickly knew it all, in fact, we still have all of her CD's. We saw her in concert, where the majority of the songs she did were of the "God is Great" theme. And we saw her when she toured for Heart in Motion. I sang "That's What Love is For" for Shell at a talent show (again, while we were "friends"), and we consider "Good For Me" one of our songs. Lesbians just don't talk about having mad love for Amy Grant, but you just did! You're so cool :-)
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