Hearing the Angels Sing
by Ida Mae Morley
The day was drawing to a close as Luella Crane and her two children, Mira,
nine, and Bob, twelve, walked out of the back door of their home for sunset worship
outdoors.
Their chairs stood at the back of the yard where the children had been playing during the
week. Not too far away, behind this little nook, towering fir trees lifted their
branches high above the mossy, fern-covered ground. That would be the perfect place
for their devotions, Luella felt.
Generally, Luella's courage was good, but she had experienced overwhelming trials, trying
to raise her small children alone since the tragic death of her husband some years before.
This had been an especially trying week, and she found herself feeling discouraged.
As the three stepped outside, an unusual sky caught their attention with its rich golden
hues filtering through the trees. Luella felt she had never seen such a brilliant
yellow sky. The children noticed too, pausing with their mother to admire its
breathtaking beauty.
Then the sound of music drifted down to them from the upper branches of those majestic
trees. Softly it began with the sound of harps. Gradually it swelled into a rich
symphonic orchestra. Then came the voices of singing -- and such singing!
Luella stood transfixed; it was the loveliest music she had ever heard!
Mira was frightened. Plainly, it was not a human orchestra and choir sounding from
the treetops. And no one was visible as they looked up. Mira started to cry as she
stood between her mother and her brother, Bob. Luella slipped a comforting arm about her
daughter, and Bob also reached an arm about his little sister. Then Luella spoke.
"We must surely be hearing angels sing." It just had to be.
As they listened in awestruck wonder, these words drifted down to them:
"Oh,
Shepherd divine, I know Thou art mine:
Thy
search in the night was for me.
This
bleak world is cold, but warm is Thy fold.
My
Shepherd, I follow Thee."
The last golden notes faded into silence except for the voice of a night bird as the
evening shadows fell. Returning to the house, Luella went at once to her piano.
Her fingers flew across the keys as she attempted to recapture the melody they had
just heard. Mira told me that her mother played it again and again.
Only a few years later, Herbert Work, a composer and music teacher, wrote both the words
and music to this same song the angels had sung that evening to Luella and her children.
Among the many sons he had written, it seemed to Herbert Work that this one was his
best.
At the time Herbert Work wrote this song he had not so much as heard of Luella or her
experience. He told me his inspiration for songs always seemed to come to him when
he was in the woods. He was behind a barn in northern California, among the trees,
when the inspiration came to him to write My Shepherd. It was just a quiet
inspiration, nothing as dramatic as Luella and her children had encountered. But the
music and the words were identical to those Luella and her children had heard several
years earlier.