My Final Playlist

I am not tech savvy AT ALL!  I am literally not kidding.  Just ask my husband and Sandy (my friend and coworker) who regularly rescue me from technological quandaries at home and work.

As a result, the task of compiling a playlist of music on my phone has been quite a group effort and has taken, in my opinion, an unreasonable amount of time just so that I can listen to music that I like while I am cleaning my house, cooking or exercising.

The other thing I am not, is mindful of the of names of music artists or the names of songs.  I just know when I hear a song whether I like it or not.  So in attempting to form playlists I either have to listen to a bunch of songs to know whether or not I want to add them to a list, or I just randomly pick songs that have titles that make me think I will like the song.  Needless to say, I have had to delete numerous songs once I have really listened to them.  And there are many songs I have heard on the radio in my car and love but have no idea how to find because I don’t know who sings it.

See now what a challenge it must be for my husband and for Sandy to deal with me?!

Gratefully, I do have one list of songs that I am firmly committed to and confident of.  It is what I call my final playlist.  My children initially thought it was kind of morbid that I have thought through the songs I would like sung at my funeral.  But… I have! And, there are a couple of people I have given the list to (for safe keeping) until that day comes. I don’t necessarily know who originally wrote some of these songs and some of them have probably been performed by more than one artist.  But I do know the words of these songs well, and it is the words that have landed them on this most important play list.

Not all the songs on my phone playlists are there because of the lyrics.  Many have made the cut because of the instrumentation, the tempo, or the genre (I love country music so, so much!).  For many, it’s just the “feel” of the song.  But the songs on my final playlist most definitely have landed there because of the lyrics.  These are songs that I imagine hearing when I meet Jesus!  They communicate the most precious and most amazing words of the gospel of Jesus Christ and they make my heart sing.  I have even pictured in my mind what it will be like when I first see Jesus face to face and hear the instruments, the beat, and the words of one song in particular. 

I do realize that there is no way I can begin to comprehend what meeting Jesus is going to be like.  I know that it will be far greater and far more amazing than I could every imagine. But even just enjoying my own imaginings of what it could be like is a wonderful experience of worship.  And I have come to realize that I don’t have to wait until my funeral to enjoy this connection with Jesus through worship.  I cannot tell you the number of times (probably in the hundreds) I have listened to this song while standing on the beach and pictured in my mind what my entrance into eternity might be like.  It’s almost like I have a music video in my mind.  And it thrills my soul.  It makes me yearn for the day I will be able to run into the arms of my Savior.

So maybe a final playlist isn’t so terribly morbid.  Maybe it is a way of stoking our appetite for the best day ever . . . the day when forever begins and we get to enjoy the most perfect play list for all of eternity. 

I am grateful for the gift of music and even grateful for the gift of technology that allows us to form lists of songs that help us worship our God and Savior.  It’s summer, it’s beach time and I can’t wait to stand in the sand and listen to my final playlist.

**If you’re curious what my “one song in particular” is, feel free to shoot me an email and I’ll share it with you.  It’s my FAVORITE!