Hannah's Hundred: A Review

Last year my mom brought my daughter a CD from a ladies day she attended.  It was entitled "Hannah's Hundred Vol IV".  We opened it up and popped it in to the CD player on the car.

My 8 year old daughter (who the CD was for) loves it.  Her older sister thinks it is corny. I am on the fence, on the one hand, a little corny, on the other hand, kids under 10 rarely have discriminating musical tastes!  


Basically the Colley family  took the entire book of James and set it to music.  Each selection is read aloud then sang acapella.  Some of the verses are set to familiar old tunes.  My daughter's absolute favorite is James 5:17-18 set to the tune of "Kaw-Liga " by Hank Williams Senior. It's awesome.

She begs to listen to the CD every time it is just her and I in the car.  We listened to the entire book of James twice during a recent trip down to the airport in Denver.  I would guess that by now she can nearly sing half of the book.  Quite an accomplishment.

What is most impressive to me though is the way that the Word has sunk into her.  When we listened to James 1:26 last week she asked me what it mean to bridle your tongue. We've talked in recent weeks about mercy, judgement, prayer and song. 

Probably our best conversation was on a evening dessert run.  We were listening to James 2:8-13.

If, however, you are fulfilling the royal law according to the Scripture, “YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF,” you are doing well. But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all. For He who said, “DO NOT COMMIT ADULTERY,” also said, “DO NOT COMMIT MURDER.” Now if you do not commit adultery, but do commit murder, you have become a transgrtessor of the law. So speak and so act as those who are to be judged by the law of liberty. For judgment will be merciless to one who has shown no mercy; mercy triumphs over judgment.

 As we pulled into the parking lot, she asked, "Wait.  How is that fair?  Lying isn't like committing murder."  It offered me the opportunity to explain that all breaking of God's law makes us "lawbreakers" or transgressors.  All law-breaking separates us from God.  We got to talk about Jesus as the perfect law-keeper and how Jesus knows how easy it is for us to make mistakes cause He lived a human life and so He has great mercy and sympathy for us.

This wasn't some kind homeschool lesson.  Or a moment when I planned a lecture on the basics of new vs old covenant theology and systems of atonement.  This was a moment when a little girl was encountering the Word and finding it puzzling. And I was right there.

As a parent I live under Deuteronomy 6:4-9.

“Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD is one! “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

God wants me to impress His Word on my child.  And not in a "That's why I take you to Sunday School" kind of way.  In an "On purpose, in our everyday life, at every possible moment" kind of way.  So when presented with another way for my daughter to enjoy and interact with the Word of God, I'm sold!

I did not receive anything from the publisher or the Colley Family.  I just like the CD.

PS. At dinner tonight my oldest daughter made a joke: 'Who's the baddest man in the Bible? Moses!  He broke all 10 commandments at once." Someone laughed and said "Maybe one tablet broke first."  My youngest replied, "If you have broken one law, you broke them all!!!"  Straight out of James.  Pretty  impressive spontaneous theological joke for an 8 year old.