What song is this?

My four-year-old granddaughter and I hung out yesterday afternoon.  In my eyes, no spectacular activities were scheduled, but in her world, even drawing with chalk on the driveway, is a special event.

As she was playing with our daughters' old dolls, dressing them up for the day and trying to manage hair that was twenty years an unmanageable mess, I heard her humming little Christmas songs that she had learned in pre-school. 

Awhile later, we dashed over to the public library to return a book that was due.  The public library is a golden magical place to her.  She can play in the children's corner, and like me as a child, she is mesmerized by the number of books surrounding her, all calling out her name.  And she can take any one of them home -- for a few days. 

Yesterday, as I was looking through some books and she was playing with Legos in the children's section, I could hear her -- not a hum, but full fledged singing -- in her sweet pure voice,  "Go tell it on the mountain that Jesus Christ is born."  She knew the words.  She knew the melody.  It was not even an intentional performance, but bubbling up right from her heart.  No audience necessary.

And as she continued to sing, people went about their library business.  Listening.  And no one even thought about telling her "no singing in the library."  Or even, "you can't sing 'religious' songs in a public place."  But we all enjoyed the music on a cold winter afternoon in a normally silent place.

She was just being herself.

And even in this secular culture with its strict adherence of rules of "you can't do that here," lives of faithfulness and unexpected grace and the good news about Jesus, reverberate from within those who do not just believe in God, but know something different.

For there our captors required of us songs,
and our tormentors, mirth, saying,
    "Sing us one of the songs of Zion!"
How shall we sing the LORD's song
               in a foreign land?

                       Psalm 137. 3-4

Continuously,
       every which way we can.
God has strategically placed us
       in time and location
to do exactly that.
Sometimes grace has words to it,
       but always a melody
       that gets stuck in our hearts.

You never know who is listening.
You never know how God is using you.