The Power of Singing
July 12, 2017·Elizabeth Ewens
The Psalms are full of exhortations to sing unto the Lord. I want to share with you a time when singing saved my life. It was a dozen years ago, and I was experiencing some serious physical challenges. I began falling, and then the symptoms became more severe until I was in a wheel chair and barely able to walk. The doctors couldn’t figure out what was causing the symptoms. It was a very scary time.
I was serving as the Children’s Pastor here at The Church On The Way. Pastor Doug had me come to the weekly Pastoral Staff Prayer meeting, so the pastors could pray for me. While they prayed, one of the pastors had a word from the Lord. She explained that the Lord showed her a picture of a tumor and instructed the pastors to sing over me with songs of deliverance (see Psalm 32:7), which the pastors began to do. It was February 28, 2005, a day I will never forget. I knew that something was happening in the Spirit, even when my symptoms continued to get worse. I knew God was working, I just couldn’t see it yet.
About seven weeks later, I was in the neurosurgeon’s office and he explained that I had a tumor growing inside my spinal cord, wrapping around my spinal cord and strangling it. He described it exactly as the Lord had given in the picture on February 28, when the pastors prayed and sang over me. Even when the doctor said there was a chance I would not be able to walk again and he did not know if they would be able to remove the tumor, I knew God was working and, whatever the outcome, God was with me. Yes, there was a surgery, weeks and weeks of rehabilitation and some hard days, but those caused me to keep singing to the One who heals, the One who sustains, and the One who is with me. Did singing save my life? After months of medical frustration, I believe it was in those moments of the pastors singing songs of deliverance that the breakthrough happened. Have you learned the power of singing praise to God, singing songs of deliverance, putting scripture to song, and singing God’s promises?
Psalm 47:6 states, “Sing praises to God, sing praises; sing praises to our King, sing praises.”
