As part of our clean-up and dis-accumulation efforts, my wife and I have been going through boxes and bags we haven’t looked in in years. Part of the curse of having much storage space in the house is the ability to shove something against the wall or on a shelf and put off dealing with it. Maybe ten years ago a cousin brought us books that had belonged to her father-in-law, a retired preacher. I graciously accepted them and pushed them against a wall in the garage. In the last two months I finally looked in them. Well, I had looked in them previously and pulled a few old books out, but not looked fully in them. Now, I did.

A few of those books caught my eye as being good for the wife and I to read aloud in our evenings. This is one of them. Then Sings My Soul is an autobiography of George Beverly Shea. I suppose many who read this post will not have heard of Shea. He was a singer of gospel hymns and other songs, most famous for his solos at the Billy Graham crusades of the 1950s-60s-70s-and maybe 80s. A deep bass, Shea had a voice that would sooth you and at the same time challenge and encourage you. I know, that sounds strange, but that’s how I saw it.

I saw Shea a number of times on televised crusades in the 1970s and once in person in a crusade in Kansas City, either 1976 or 77. His voice was powerful, and he worked well with the choir. However, I didn’t know much about him. This book gave me that background. A Canadian by birth, Shea was the son of a minister who had churches in both Canada and the US. It was in the latter, in New Jersey just across the river from New York City, that the family was when Shea was old enough to begin his career.

The book goes through much about his upbringing, his encouragement in music by his mother, his meeting and courting the girl who would become his wife, his early work with a life insurance company, his rise in radio singing ministries, and his notice by those who formed the Billy Graham organization.

Reading this book was easy and fast, at only 103 pages, but it gave much information. We finished the book feeling like we had what we needed to understand Shea’s life, and appreciate his ministry. Afterwards we spent much time on YouTube listening to his songs.

But, the book actually had a bonus, because it is two books in one. Turn the book over and you have Songs That Life The Heart, also by Shea (both books coauthored by Fred Bauer). This is a two-in-one crusade edition. In this second book, Shea talks about various hymns and gospel songs that have touched him and the world, and about the composers of those songs. In these 75 pages are many anecdotes of how the songs came to be and how Shea interacted with the composers. This also was a very good book that we are glad to have read.

If you can pick up one of these, the reading will be well worth it. I don’t know how widely available they are.

Is this a keeper? Alas, no. Too many books being kept on our shelves, too few years left in the world, to assign permanent space to this. So into the sale/donation pile it goes, having graced our lives much, and now ready to grace others.