For most of my life, praise seemed like such an other-worldly, churchy thing. Praise lived alongside liturgies and homilies and sacraments. To offer praise seemed more a prescriptive act than an natural one.

But as my faith matured–thanks to incredible mentors and writers–I came to see praise as the  most natural expression of gratitude, of honor and affirmation. My children kid me mercilessly about not waving when I pass them on the highway. What are you doing? Why don’t you ever see us? To which I respond, I’m singing. Sorry, but I can’t sing and wave at the same time. 

Honestly, I’ve had some of my greatest praise moments, alone in the car, singing loudly–and mostly on pitch. Likewise, I’ve had moments that are indelibly etched in my praise memory when I’ve been holding sleeping babies in the middle of the night, looking at the stars in a clear, winter sky, and walking alone.

Several years ago, I co-wrote a song, “Sanctuary of Praise,” for our church praise team. This song, in so many ways, has become a theme song for my life. Here are a few stanzas:

I see God in the smallest things                                                                     in my ordinary days                                                                                 Folding clothes and making beds                                                                     will be my act of praise

As I watch my children sleep                                                                             in the quiet of the dawn                                                                                     Jesus folds us in His arms                                                                                 where we belong

And oh, my Father has come home with me                                                   I’ve invited Him here to stay                                                                           and in this ordinary place                                                                               we’ve made a sanctuary of praise.

In my sanctuary of praise, folding clothes and making beds, making Playdoh animals with my grandchildren, and tooling up the Des Moines River with my husband at the helm of his jon boat are authentic acts of praise.

Just the other night, my father was telling me of a recurrent image he has had since adolescence: Jesus, arms stretched wide open, standing in a field surrounded by workers–gritty, earthy, lost and helpless humans. This, he explained, is a picture of the pre-church Jesus, the Savior who dares to love the unlovable, who dares to live among the dirty and the hopeless. This is the Savior whose sanctuary moves with him into leper colonies, desert places, solitary mountain tops, gutters and back alleys, taverns and soup kitchens, refugee camps and prisons. And this is the Savior whose sanctuary is omnipresent and yet transcendent, earthly and yet holy.

Evangelist Billy Graham writes:

The highest form of worship is the worship of unselfish Christian service. The greatest form of praise is the sound of consecrated feet seeking out the lost and helpless.

Billy Graham, like my father, understands that the most sacred music in the sanctuary of praise is the sound of consecrated feet seeking out the lost and the helpless. 

Those who enter the sanctuary of praise may sacrifice, serve, and seek. They might sing mightily or sit quietly awaiting that still small voice. Some may perform simple acts in simple settings, for all praise is worthy praise.

So if you see me driving down the highway, the window open, my left arm dangling in the summer air, most likely I will be singing my praise, lustily, lost in the moment.