Singing Into Eternity: How My Father-In-Law Used His Voice For Jesus
“O, how wonderful is the human voice! It is indeed the organ of the soul!” —Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
When God made my late father-in-law, I’m convinced he crafted one of the finest human voices and entrusted it to him. Anyone who had the joy of hearing him sing would tell you that his voice was something special. So lovely that it made your soul ache.
He died just nine days before our first son was born. At his funeral, friends from all over formed a choir to pay tribute to a man whose voice and life they cherished. Oh, how I wish I had the chance to sing along with them, but alas, I was in labor that day—sitting in the front pew squeezing my husband’s hand through each contraction.
Five years later, this is my tribute to my dear father in-love. My hero. A man who used his voice as an instrument of grace to the glory of God.
Glenn Stanley was born into a musical family on April 4, 1938. He inherited his mother’s love of singing and took to the stage at a young age as a competitive ballroom dancer.
Glenn was always a bit of a troublemaker. As a teenager, he got into a little too much trouble and committed a felony that landed him in prison. It wasn’t something Glenn talked about much—except for one important detail.
It was in prison that God led my father-in-law to Christ. A local pastor faithfully visited Glenn and shared the hope of the gospel with him there. He emerged from prison a new and free man, both physically and spiritually, who was determined to use his voice to glorify God for the rest of his life.
If the church is the body of Christ, then Glenn had to be the vocal cords. Glenn ministered to the church with his voice—addressing his brothers and sisters in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs (Eph 5:19). He beckoned them before the throne of grace each week as he sang and made melody to the Lord with all his heart.
Glenn’s voice rejoiced with those who rejoiced, and it comforted those who wept. He sang for dozens and dozens of funeral services and weddings over the years, and people still stop and tell us just how much his voice means to them.
Before he was even my boyfriend’s dad, Glenn was the man who worked at the local lumber yard and encouraged me to hop up on a pile of railroad ties and sing Jesus Loves Me when I was shopping with my dad. He was the musician who sang The Lord’s Prayer at my great-grandmother’s funeral and ministered to my family so much that they still talk about it today. He was the dear man who sometimes visited our church across town and inspired me to use my own voice to glorify God. In a way, he gave me my first taste of the man my future husband would become: a kind-hearted servant intent on using his gifts for God’s glory.
Glenn’s ministry of music touched countless lives over the years, but perhaps the most important songs he sang were lullabies of love to his children. Glenn was generous and vocal with his love. My husband can’t remember a day that went by without hearing the words “I love you” from his dad. Not the “love ya” that so many of us mindlessly let roll off our tongues, but the look-you-straight-in-the-eye-from-the-bottom-of-my-heart “I love you.” My husband knew that he couldn’t do anything to earn or lose his dad’s love. Glenn imaged to his sons how our Heavenly Father exults over his children with singing (Zeph 3:17).
In addition to his own two boys, Glenn fathered five foster children over the years. I think of how scary it must have been for those kids to be uprooted from their families and transplanted into a brand new home with new people, foods, smells, and noises. And then I think of Glenn singing them to sleep, and how much of a comfort that must have been to their frightened little souls. A voice of love and light in the dark of night.
My mother-in-law loved her husband well for nearly fifty years. I like to think of her as the diaphragm to his vocal cords—lending him constant support. I recently asked her if she remembered the last song Glenn sang here on earth. The Holy City, she told me. The lyrics brought a tear to my eye:
Jerusalem! Jerusalem
Sing for the night is o’er
Hosanna in the highest
Hosanna forevermore!
I couldn’t think of a more fitting swan song for my father-in-law than this one. Hooked up to an oxygen tank in his final days, he yearned to sing songs of praise without any hindrances. He longed to sing Hosanna to his king forevermore.
And when he awoke, the night was over.
My father-in-law has been absent from his body for five years now, but every so often I’ll hear his voice.
Sometimes it’s bona fide Glenn. There’s the voicemail he left me the week before he died: “Hey, sweetheart…I love you.” Or there’s the recording of him singing Christmas carols with his brothers. Our boys love that.
But often times, I hear what Henry Wadsworth Longfellow called “the organ of the soul.” I hear it when my husband tells our children how much he loves them, when I drive past the county jail, when my kids sing Jesus Loves Me at the top of their lungs in the middle of the grocery store, and when we sing Amazing Grace at church. I smile knowing that he has “no less days to sing God’s praise” than when he’d first begun. He’s doing exactly what God created him to do.
This article was originally published at Morning By Morning on January 31, 2019.