The last few weeks have been sad ones for the music community and for those who grew up with Whitney Houston. She managed to dominate the charts for years with songs that provided a soundtrack to life through the 80s and 90s.
Her marriage to Bobby Brown seemed to change her drastically. The once fresh-faced girl with the big voice became the lady who belted out "Bobby!" in her husky, cigarette rasp of the 2000s and beyond. We painfully watched her make that transformation--during candid interviews, on the show Finding Bobby Brown, and through YouTube videos of her diminished vocal ability, captured during a European tour in 2010.
Watching her funeral on TV last week, I marveled at how many celebrities filled the New Hope Baptist Church in Newark, New Jersey. I was struck by those who came to the pulpit to sing or bring personal stories, dedicated to the silenced "Voice," who lay in a beautiful coffin just a few feet away. I saw or heard most of the four-hour funeral either on the kitchen TV or on my Sirius XM car radio. My 85 year-old father had no idea who she was. I told him that she was this generation's Frank Sinatra or Ella Fitzgerald. He was astonished that there could be any singer comparable to the greats from his beloved Swing Era of the 30s and 40s. I said, "Believe it or not, Dad, she was that good."
Facebook was riddled with comments the night of her death. One particularly caught my attention. It was an excerpt taken from the song "How Will I Know," featuring just her vocal track and some background vocals from the song--no accompaniment whatsoever. Drenched in a bit of reverb was an astonishing voice, unaided by auto-tuning, hitting the full range of notes with incredible accuracy, along with a rich, beautiful tone that seemed to come straight from the throne room of heaven. What force and authority. She is unmatched today.
It was refreshing to hear the tributes from the pulpit. They were complimentary of her as a friend, mother and artist, but also carried a warning for the lifestyle that led to her untimely death at 48. It wasn't a preaching service, per se, but it was definitely a praise service. God was lifted up there. I am certain that all of those celebrities in the church heard the Gospel; there was no way out of it. Bishop T.D. Jakes, Rev. Marvin Winans, and even Tyler Perry pointed to God's love and grace in an eloquent way.
We have lost a wonderful singer, the family a daughter and mother. But even through trouble, her testimony--and ironically the last thing she sang the Thursday night before her death--was "Jesus loves me, this I know..." Having confessed Jesus as Lord, I believe that she is now singing with the angels. Grace leads the believer home, through the redemptive blood of Jesus, and not by ones own good works or strength. According to Romans 8:38-39:
"For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
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