Joni Eareckson Tada: Sharing Hope

Guest (Male): Welcome to Joni Eareckson Tada: Sharing Hope. It’s so great to be here with you, Joni. I love talking to you on the radio, sharing stories and insights with one another.

You were sharing a story about your daughter Sarah and her incredible love for music. I’m still smiling at the thought of not only what I learned about music therapy from what you shared, but Sarah’s God-given talents to make music unto the Lord. Good for her.

Joni Eareckson Tada: Oh, good for all of us. It is wonderful to think not only of how God has used music in Sarah’s life, but how he uses music to soothe all of us in our times of distress.

Guest (Male): Oh, absolutely. In my darkest times, I sing to comfort myself. I sing my way through suffering. I give myself a hug and remind myself of brighter days ahead with the words of a beautiful hymn.

And I think that’s what we see happening in music therapy, isn’t that true? Children with special needs, those who are overstimulated, agitated, crying—so often it’s music that calms them down and settles their spirit. That’s music therapy, right?

Shauna: It sure is. Joni, God uses music to calm me down when I’m agitated as well. When Sarah was born, she very quickly started dying. In fact, we lived for the first three months of her life in the neonatal intensive care unit in the hospital. She was just so weak and could not even be removed from her life support system.

While Sarah was fighting for every weak, faint heartbeat, I was honestly fighting for my sanity. I was a strong Christian—or I thought I was a strong Christian—before Sarah was born, but watching my baby die every day really put my faith to the test.

I know that scripture told me in 2 Timothy 1:7 that God did not give me a spirit of fear, but one of power and one of love and one of a sound mind, which I held onto every day. But I was feeling like I was losing the battle in those three months. At my darkest point in that journey, I remember just literally, verbally crying out to God next to Sarah’s hospital bed. In that very moment, it was almost as though I was watching a movie and right on cue, the most beautiful harp music started to play.

Guest (Male): From where?

Shauna: It sounded like from out of heaven. I thought for sure it must be a CD, but as I listened, it just sounded too real to be a CD. I finally peeked my head out of Sarah’s hospital room door and lo and behold, the most beautiful harpist was sitting not far from her room with a full-sized harp, playing hymns in the neonatal intensive care unit.

Guest (Male): Oh my goodness. Now that’s an answer to a desperate prayer of yours, isn’t it?

Shauna: I knew it was God’s answer for sure, sending that woman right at that very moment to be someone to calm me in my biggest storm.

Years later, I went back to that same hospital. As I was about to get on the elevator, who should come to the elevator but that same harpist dragging a full-sized harp with her? I was then able to tell her, "Thank you for being the answer to my prayer so many years ago." The two of us just stood in that elevator with tears in our eyes, praising God for the way he unites the body of Christ.

Guest (Male): So God did a little bit of his own musical therapy on you that time, didn’t he?

Shauna: It really was a gift from heaven.

Guest (Male): Friend listening, I pray you’ll find a creative way to use your gifts, maybe like that harpist with her concert grand harp dragging it into a neonatal unit. However you do it, use your gifts to encourage somebody else today, right, Joni?

Shauna: That’s right, Joni. Friend listener, please go directly to joniradio.org where you can find all sorts of opportunities to put your spiritual gifts into action today.