The Music of Your Home

I love music. I love music enough to have majored in it in college. I planned to teach music for a living before God called my wife and me into vocational ministry. Everything about music intrigued me. There are very few forms or styles of it that I dislike. I do, however, have some that are my favorite. What is the favorite music in your family? Does everyone agree or are the different opinions within the walls of your home?

Music, in its most simple definition, is emotion expressed through sound. Think about it. What music just makes you happy? Is there some that makes you sad or even anxious? (Play the “Jaws” theme at the beach and see what happens!) When we listen to music we respond emotionally. There are “summer” songs, “breakup” songs, “cruisin’” songs, and all types of songs. Sometimes we choose a song based upon how we feel. Sometimes we choose it based on how we want to feel. It is that influential.

Music is composed of various notes. There are three components of a musical note: pitch, volume, and duration. (Bear with me here.) Pitch is the note’s highness or lowness. Volume, of course, is the note’s loudness. Duration is the note’s length. A high note can be tolerated softly and for a short time. If it is loud and long, it may be less tolerable. Likewise, a low note is pleasurable if it is not loud or extremely long. If a note is too high, it may even be out of the hearing range of a human hear. If it is too low, it is more of a vibration than a perceivable sound. A mixture of high notes, low, notes, loud notes, soft notes, fast notes, and slow notes, along with space between notes and combinations of notes comprise the thing we call music.

Enough explanation. Now, let’s get to the meat of the matter. With the addition of words, our verbal communication consists of the same elements which are found in music. Think about it. Go back and read the previous paragraphs. Sometimes we speak in shrieks, sometimes in mumbles. Sometimes we yell, sometimes we whisper. Sometimes we speak hurriedly, and sometimes we drag out our words and sentences. Our emotions are expressed in how we speak to our spouses, children, and grandchildren. We have the power to influence their mood, whether good or bad. We have the power to build up or to tear down. What we often seem to lack is awareness and self-control.

Now, what is the music of your home? Is it happy? Is it sad? Is it anxious? Is it even worse? Do you choose words and speech that build up or do you choose those that tear down? The emotions expressed by our words and created in others by our words are within our control. The music in our home is up to us. We must choose carefully.

The climate and the emotions within our walls can be adjusted by our communication style, our words, and the amount love contained within them. Love is an emotion, but it is also more than that. Love is a commitment. It is a commitment to someone else’s well-being. It is a commitment to lay down our preferences for the sake of another. It is, in this case, a commitment to measure what we say and how we say it, then to choose to build up those within the walls of our homes. It requires commitment, awareness, and vigilance.

I have been challenged by www.christiangrandfather.org to consider how a grandfather can be a Christian disciple-maker of his grandchildren. In response, there are now a few articles on www.kevingarrett.org concerning how a grandfather can influence his grandchildren in their Christian walk. So far, here are some things I labeled “A Grandparent’s Prelude to Disciple-making.”

1. Do not usurp your children and their spouses. Honor God’s design for the home.
2. Repair and maintain healthy relationships with your children and their spouses.
3. Be sure you have “blessed” your children in their childhood. If not, express your love, affirmation, and approval regularly, thus blessing them as adult children.
4. Maintain your personal closeness to the heart of God on a continual basis.
5. Do not pray for your desires for your children and grandchildren, but for God’s desires and blessings in their temporal and eternal lives.

I plan to try to include thoughts concerning communication within the next portion of this online project. Please pray for guidance in this endeavor.

I hope your home is one of peaceful, uplifting, loving communication. The world is tough. It is full of trouble. Our homes should be different. They should be refuges of love and care. They should be places of comfort and peace. Perhaps this brief article helps in some small way.

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