Family Business: Part V

Like I said in the introduction to this series, my family is brought together by music more than almost anything. However, faith is our familial fabric. We’re not a perfect group, nor do we ever pretend to be. But our house is filled with love because of our shared love for God.

Now, are we saints that go to church six times a week and have memorized the genealogy of Christ? Nah. As you can tell if you’ve read the series thus far, we have quite a few secular interests and passions. But, there is a ‘glimmer of God’ in all of us that we were bred from and never lost, no matter how far we get from each other.

I believe I got my ‘gimmer’ from my mother.

I was my mom’s last baby when she was 30 years old. By the time I came around, I imagine she was pretty set in her life’s posture as a working mother and wife. She worked diligently for what she had and continues to do that today. Even after all of the hardening that life forced her to endure, her tender heart was something I couldn’t get enough of as a child and, to this day, is my most prized possession.

Before we moved to where my dad introduced me to Jason Mraz and my sister put me on to Taylor Swift, we lived in a town about 45 minutes south for the first half-decade of my life. It wasn’t THAT long ago, but as I planned for this piece, I was astounded by how much of those first five years, in that house, I remembered.

Something I remember vividly is laying in a bed with Bro in a dark room. It was bedtime for us so the room was dark. What I visualize in my memory is a silhouette of my mother looking down at me, singing.

“Jesus

Bright as the morning star

Jesus

How can I tell You

How beautiful You are to me?

Jesus,

Song that the angels sing

Jesus,

Dearer to my heart than anything

Sweeter than springtime

Purer than sunshine

Ever my song will be

Jesus, You’re beautiful to me”

I would love to tell you that that’s when Jesus came into my life, flipped me upside down, and put my feet on solid ground, but I was three. She was singing “Jesus, You’re Beautiful”, the second song from CeCe Winans’ 2003 gospel album Throne Room. All of that meant absolutely nothing to me at the time of my mother singing it to me and my brother, I was completely content with the moment and hoping it would last forever.

Fast forward about 15 years or so, and I hear this song on a Gospel Pandora station for the first time in a long time. The memory of my mom singing it and playing the album all the time had completely escaped my consciousness as a senior in high school that often opted for late nights at Red Robin and yearning for the time when my parents didn’t worry about if I was safe in my bed at night (Ain’t that something?)

The more I revisited Throne Room, the more memories returned.

Songs like “By The Blood”, “Come Fill My Heart”, and “Hallelujah Praise” put me right back in the backseat of SUVs and sitting at Spongebob kiddie tables. Not only that, but these are beautifully put together gospel songs. Gospel (how I grew up on it) has a particular type of style; heavy, choir driven, and, most times, very loud. Which is great. I love Hezekiah Walker as much as the next guy.

But this album is truly good front to back. I always knew my mother loved CeCe, but her performance here, as well as her other works, is some of the best Gospel music I’ve listened to. She is strong and sings with the courage of her convictions. She is also enough of a vocalist to produce a track like “How Great Thou Art!”, with little going on other than vocals.

My morning playlists would be incomplete without “All In Your Name” and “Hallelujah To the King”, which is what, I believe, praise and worship is all about; simplicity and surrender.

This was my longest post of the series so if you made it all the way here, I really appreciate you. This is not something I do to get views or reads. I simply make what I want to and if you’re supporting it, that means so much to me.

Mom, thank you for being a vessel of God’s love to me, our family, and so many others. You mean more to me than I could ever express in a blog.

By Billy Listyl

October 24, 2020