This is the 19th of 25 special reflections based on lessons I learned from my mother. These will run from my birthday on October 27 until her birthday on November 20.

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Psalm 150

Mom and music. Music and Mom. The two of those have always gone together, kind of like air and lungs. Throughout my life if there’s one thing I remember, it’s my mother playing the piano and singing. And if there’s one thing I miss more than anything else, it’s my mother playing the piano and singing.

When I was younger, she wrote songs about life and she recorded a lot of those on cassettes. I still have several digital copies of those, and most of them are pretty sad. She wasn’t happy in her marriage, and she poured out her pain in song. Later, when she met and married my stepfather, the songs got happier. But her most joyful music was yet to come.

Mom was involved in church music even as a young woman. When we moved to Florida in the late 1960s, she got involved in an Episcopal church and her musical prowess came to the forefront. She formed a choir that had a rock-and-roll edge to it and nicknamed them “The Crusaders.” I still remember Charlie and Donny Brown playing the guitar and drums, leading the church in Blind Faith’s “In the Presence of the Lord.” It was a complete departure from what most people in the church had experienced — and it was totally engaging. It’s safe to say that St. Andrew’s in Fort Pierce had the best music of any church in town.

In the early 1980s, now remarried and living in Sarasota, Fla., Mom and my stepdad had a huge encounter with the Holy Spirit and she turned all of her musical passion toward praise and worship. She led worship at church and she constantly looked for ways to make it better and more effective. She had been on the right track at St. Andrew’s. There, she had taught the church “In the Presence of the Lord.” Now at the Church of the Holy Spirit in Osprey, she was leading people into the presence of the Lord.

Mom loved everything about worship, and I truly think that she tried to live every minute of every day with at least a little bit of worship in it. That’s why her cancer became so very cruel toward the end. She clearly wasn’t able to lead worship any longer, but she could still sing — until she couldn’t. The breast cancer sapped her lungs of breath, but she had her voice until the cancer invaded her thyroid and deprived her of almost even speaking.

There’s a particularly painful irony in that when I read Psalm 150. The psalm calls for praising the Lord with trumpets, harps, tambourines, strings and cymbals. Mom had spent a lifetime doing just that, using every musical gift God had given her to praise Him and encourage others to do the same. But the psalm ends with something even more fundamental than music: “Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.” And here was my mother, who had spent so much of her life praising God with her breath, gradually losing the ability to do so. Cancer was taking away her music, but it couldn’t take away her worship.

One of my most enduring memories was one Sunday when I went to sit with her during church. The church I was attending was streaming its service, and I put it on my laptop for her to see and hear. Her eyesight was fading and she couldn’t sing, but there was my Mom, raising her hands in worship and communing with the Lord perhaps more than anyone who was in the sanctuary. The cancer was doing its best to ravage her body, but it couldn’t touch her spirit or her desire to reach toward Heaven.

I had spent my entire life watching Mom lead other people in worship. Now, when she could no longer sit at a piano or lift her voice in song, someone else was providing the music, and I was bringing it to her on a laptop. But the worship was still there. She didn’t need a piano, a microphone or even a voice to enter the presence of the Lord. She had spent a lifetime teaching others to worship, and now, without singing a note, she was teaching me perhaps her greatest lesson about worship.

Mom lived a life of worship, and she has inspired me to do the same. I can’t say that I live every minute with worship in it, but I’m doing better. And I’m realizing that she truly was on to something. When we’re worshiping the Lord there isn’t much time to be angry or spiteful or bitter. When we’re in the Lord’s presence, He tends to speak to us in various ways, and our lives are generally more productive and fulfilling. When we’re worshiping, we’re closer to being at our very best — because we’re closer to Him.

But Mom taught me something even more important. Worship isn’t just about what we get out of it. It’s about recognizing who God is, regardless of what’s happening in our lives. Mom didn’t stop worshiping when life became painful, and she didn’t stop when cancer began taking away the things she loved most. She continued to praise the Lord because He was still worthy of her praise.

I still miss hearing Mom play the piano. I miss her voice and the joy she found in leading people into God’s presence. And now, when I lift my own voice in worship, I’m carrying on a little bit of what she taught me. Music was how Mom expressed her worship, but worship was how she lived her life.

Psalm 150 calls everything that has breath to praise the Lord. Mom spent a lifetime answering that call. And when her breath was nearly gone, her heart was still singing.

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Reflection copyright © 2026 Doug DeBolt.