Love Lifted Me

My Reflection

As a child, I was always excited when we sang “Love Lifted Me.” It had the buoyancy of a song children could enter into wholeheartedly. Its joy was inseparable, for me, from Brother—later Elder—Dennis Cuffy, who loved it and also loved “He Lives.”

Brother Cuffy conducted the evangelistic effort that resulted in our entire family rejoining the Seventh-day Adventist Church. He made an impression not only through preaching and music but through the way he engaged the children. At the chorus we would imitate his gestures: hands stretched outward, palms down, rising to shoulder height as love lifted us “right up,” then raised above our heads as we reached “to the top.” We delighted in it.

It was fun, certainly, but it was also memorable instruction. The movement gave a child's body a way of understanding the message. Love was not a distant theological term. It was something that reached down, lifted and restored. What began as imitation became a lasting image of grace.

I remember the companion association with “He Lives” as part of Brother Cuffy's musical ministry, but “Love Lifted Me” carries the story here. I still hear the excitement of children singing, see the raised hands and remember the spiritual turning point that those evangelistic meetings represented for our family.

Some lessons stay because they were explained brilliantly. Others stay because they were sung, enacted and enjoyed together. This hymn belongs to the second kind.

What I Carry

Love learned in song and gesture can shape a child's understanding of grace for life.