Singing with Children-the Blessings and Sacrifices of Being a Mother

A few Sundays ago, I was asked to sing in church.  I had taken voice lessons the  last few years of highschool and into college and sung with choirs at school while I studied nursing.  So, at that time in my life, my voice had become quite trained.

Skip 12 years down the road, a marriage and five kids later, and singing had become something that I only did when asked to at church.  My voice still sounds trained, but definitely not what it used to be.  Nor do I have time to practice the hours it took to make a song sound truly beautiful.  But, I still accept those occasions to sing when asked.  

Like so often, my time was short for practice, and my song sounded very unrehearsed.  After I sang, I felt a bit sad at what I had lost.  But then, I thought of the song I had sung and who I had sung with.  For this particular song, I had asked my two youngest boys to come up with me to sing a child's song.  One of them bailed out at the last minute, and I desperately asked my oldest boy to come sing with me.  He nodded his consent as we sat in church waiting for our time to sing.

Then he came up with me, and my oldest son came and embarrassingly began to sing a sweet tune of looking for peace and hope.  He was out of tune, shy, and quiet.  On my part, I was a bit nervous and holding a small three year old who decided to stop singing half way through.  After it was done,  I sighed, knowing that it was not my best performance.

But then I stopped to think.  Here I was, with two of my beautiful children who I loved more than anything, doing something that I love to do.  It's hard to describe how I now feel about that moment, but for some reason the sacrifice of my music, does not seem so hard.  Perhaps because I was able to share it with two cute children, maybe because the music itself was one which was difficult to ruin.  But I just remember standing there singing with two sweet boys who chose to come sing with me.

It's singing with my children now that brings me the greatest joy...through all the ups and downs...I am privileged to sing with my children.