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Good morning.

Clara, a young poor girl, was hired at age of 14 to nanny a baby boy whose parents had no time for him. Morton was born with a severe hearing problem that was to go undiagnosed until his late teens.

At the age of three, came the day Clara had dreaded. Morton was taken from her.  His parents sent him away to a boarding school.

With no memory of Clara, the scars of his childhood ran so deep, that overwhelmed by a sense of rejection, he could see no way forward.

But, in that terrible moment a melody began to float across his mind; a melody which, he later recalled, shone a gentle light into his inner darkness and warmed his soul. Inexplicably he felt able to face life again.

Six decades later, Clara, then aged 91, sat in the sun, reading an article about a retired Professor of Notre Dame University, named Morton Kelsey – and she wondered. She wrote to him. ‘Are you the Morton Kelsey who was born in Palmerton, Pennsylvania?’

They met. Clara showed him her faded photos and told him stories of his early childhood. His view of his beginnings was changed; his early story was not all about rejection. And then she sang him a lullaby which she said she loved to sing gently into his ear each night.

He recognised it instantly. And for the first time he realised that it was Clara’s love song that saved him all those years ago from ending his life.

Gracious God, grant us the grace we need today, that through our words and actions, we might find practical ways to sing a love song over all those who are struggling. Amen