Hymns Not in our Hymnals

The best part of attending the Life of Christ event last weekend was hearing my sister and the rest of the choir singing beautiful, powerful hymns, many of which aren't in our little, green hymnals. These, I loved mostly for their melodies. Not being familiar with the lyrics (and not always being able to pick out the lyrics from the performances due to the difficulty of producing clarity in choral performances), I may not have known exactly what the choir was singing, but it was really pretty, and I could catch enough of the words to know that they held good messages.

One song in particular spoke of being welcome in heaven not as "a stranger, nor a guest, but like a child at home." That really spoke to me. I've often hoped that I'd be welcome in heaven at least as a guest. I feel like I don't really belong there, but God is merciful and forgiving, so He might save a spot for me at the table anyway. But it's not like that. It's not that there's a long table that can seat so many guests; it's our heavenly family's dining room table and each seat has a name on it and one of those names is mine. I belong there, not as a guest, but as part of the family.

As I looked over the lyrics online, I found other touching messages, almost as touching as the music itself. It made me wonder why these songs aren't in our books. My first thought was that maybe some of the messages aren't quite doctrinally accurate. But I've heard Motab sing the songs the choir had sung, so I don't think that's it. It could be that we couldn't get the rights to put the music in our hymnals, and that's understandable, but then, how did we get permission to perform those hymns?

Whatever the reasons are that we had access to those hymns but don't have access to them every week, I'm glad that I was able to hear them last weekend. It reminded me that there's more good than what we usually tap into, and that there's beauty beyond what we usually see and hear. I'm grateful for the many talented people who contributed to the beauty and sacredness of that event and for the reminder of the quality of the many excellent hymns, including the ones not in our hymnals.