Bittersweet Farm
Series: Knowing God by Heart
Title: Coram Deo – Living in the Presence of God
Date: 06/14/2015 11:00 AM
Speaker: Ken Pierpont
Text: Psalm 139:7-10
Place: Evangel Baptist Church-Taylor, Michigan
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Series: Knowing God by Heart
Title: We Are Weak But He is Strong
Text: 2 Corinthians 12:7-10
Speaker: Ken Pierpont
Place: Evangel Baptist Church-Taylor, Michigan
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Every morning of my first 18 years of life I woke up to music—Christian music. Every morning. My mother, Jane Pierpont, awakened the house with a joyful song every single day. When I was about 12 I started delivering newspapers for the Dayton Journal-Herald at about 5 a.m. six days a week so the music started as soon as mom got up—but Mom saturated our home with edifying Christian music. When I was small mom would put is in bed and then, often, play the piano softly while we went to sleep.
Mom loves to sing and signs all her notes; “Singing His Praise.” Everyone who knows mom knows she loves to sing for the Lord. It’s not about music to her but about ministry and about making known her love for the Lord. When we would travel she would always be sure to bring music with her because she was often asked to sing at the churches we visited. When someone asked her to sing she would send one of us back out to the car to get an old Avon bag she used to carry her music and she would sing.
Whenever our family had a difficulty or a hardship she seemed to have a song for the occasion. Usually she would just sing a few bars of the song and we would all drawn back to what we professed to believe. “…lovingkindness, lovingkindness, my heart is filled with lovingkindness…” or “…with Christ in the vessel we can smile at the storm…” or “…be like Jesus this my song, in the home and in the throng, be like Jesus all day long….”
Saturday nights mom would always practice her music for Church, often preparing a solo that would go with Dad’s message. She loves to sing His praise.
For that reason it was a sad to hear a couple years ago when she began to lose her singing voice. Today she can only sing a few minutes and then she is reduced to a barely audible whisper. She can’t sing in church anymore. She can’t sing around the house.
Dad and mom serve a church in south-central Michigan in a place called South Litchfield. The church is South Litchfield Baptist Church. It is an idyllic white clapboard country church with a parsonage next door, perfect for them. They work hard and faithfully shepherd the flock there. Mom really doesn’t have the health and strength to do all that she would like to do. She is able to contribute regularly to her blog. Every week she publishes a little devotional that she uses in church each Sunday morning. This week she published a little poem about her determination to be faithful in praise even though she can’t sing anymore and she can’t do what she would like to do to serve the Lord. When she wrote the poem, her son Nathan (the youngest and a pastor in Kalamazoo, Michigan) immediately went to his piano and wrote a melody.
Here is what Nathan wrote about the little song:
“After reading mom’s poem today, I sat down to the piano to play some music that seemed to fit the poem. It didn’t take long to realize a melody could fit the words and make it a song. Though it seemed it should be heard in a woman’s voice, I decided to record it so that my mom could hear how I put our her words to music. This is the song. I can’t believe mom and I haven’t collaborated on a song before. Maybe we should do more, and maybe her song is not silent alter all. Her song continues in the voices of her children and many grandchildren who share her passion for the Lord’s work.”
After listening to Nathan’s song, with tears streaming down my face, I quietly determined by the grace and with the help of God that I, too, would praise Him with all my heart at every opportunity as long as He choses to allow me to have a voice to sing.
He has given you a voice. Even if you can’t sing, will you praise Him?
You can listen to the song here:
Ken Pierpont—Singing His Praise
Granville Cottage
Riverview, Michigan
June 1, 2015
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