Ps 96:1-4 "O sing unto the Lord a new song: sing unto the Lord, all the earth. Sing unto the Lord, bless His name. Declare His glory among the heathen, His wonders among all people. For the Lord is great."
From Dorothy Callies: Linda Martin of Virginia has a very unusual story when I asked her about how did she memorized a song out of her heart, "Where Art Thou?"
This is my story. When I was 10 years and 8 months old I became very ill. After a couple of months the diagnosis became spinal meningitis and very little hope that I would live. They gave me a new drug, streptomycin, knowing that it would cause hearing loss. I lived but in 4 months time went from being hearing to profound deafness. I was confined to bed rest for 3 years. We had no TV and I could not hear the radio anymore so I started reading a lot - so much that my mom was afraid I would lose my eyes also. I was soooo bored! So for some reason I asked my Dad to bring home a copy for the songbook our church used and I started memorizing it- all 303 songs. After that I would memorize any new song I found. I must have hundreds of them in my head. Smile. Sometimes one I have not thought of for a long time will pop up in my head.
When I am discouraged I have a hard time to pray myself out of it but when I start singing one song after another from memory then I soon feel my spirits lift. Music that glorifies Him means a lot to me. Some people think this is strange for a profoundly deaf person, but it is just the way the Lord made me. Smile!
Dorothy: What does that mean? Memorizing that many songs put enemies to silence (Ps. 8:2). She had lived long enough to adopt 29 deaf kids in her life time with the help of Lottie Riehof, being a grandmother who had just turned 90 this month of August 2010. At Springfield, Missouri, Central Bible College, Lottie was our former teacher of Tony, me and Linda in 1960's. Lottie wrote a book called, "Joy of Signing."
If you ever have a hard time getting out of discouragement, try singing songs of praise that would increase the "Glory of God" in your spirit and bring brightness in your eyes like Dean said. Thank you, Linda for such a marvelous story. Truly, God is glorified when a testimony is given like this.
