Hide ‘Em In Your Heart CDs

There are lots of great (and a few not so great) children’s’ bibles and bible story books out there. I’m sure you have some on your own shelves.

What small children can miss out on though is the key truths we learn from individual verses, especially those which don’t turn up in the “Greatest Hits” stories which appear in children’s Bibles, such as Daniel in the lion’s den, Noah and the ark etc. They often find them easy to memorise as early as 2 or 3 but it’s harder to make that process fun and they often don’t understand what the verse is about.

We found the “Hide ‘Em In Your Heart” CDs by accident and our daughter was immediately hooked, as was I! The songs start with a very short talk by the singer, Steve Green, which explains what the verse is about. The songs themselves consist of just bible verses with no added text, making them somewhat different from Praise albums (great as they can be).

Within 2 weeks our 3 year old, Pigwig, had painlessly memorised 40 bible verses, and so had her Mummy! Our favourites are “I can do all things”, “Without complaining” and G-O-D is L-O-V-E. My son loves “You knit me together” as a lullaby and my daughter really likes “A joyful heart is good medicine” and the bluegrass “There is a friend” which includes a virtuoso harmonica solo. My top favourite of course is: “Children obey your parents in the Lord” !

They have become a key part of our kids’ childhood, often being THE. ONLY. CDs they’ll let us play in the car. Luckily for us, they’re really well produced so that isn’t quite as painful an experience as playing most nursery rhyme CDs hundreds of times would be! I always feel the atmosphere in the car improves and, as an adult, they’ve spoken to me so many times at key moments as I drove along, sometimes even without the children with me.

Key to our enjoyment is the broad range of musical styles (everything from classical arrangements to bluegrass to acoustic pop) and the excellent production values. You can see some of them on Youtube here:  to get an idea although the videos are a bit cheesy.

The double album is the best value and is available from Eden.co.uk here .  Disclosure: This is not an affiliate link and I don’t get a cut.

I will give one proviso about these CDs. Below is a conversation I had with my daughter after a children’s party, age 3, verbatim.

Me: “So, honey, did you have a good time?”

Pigwig: “Yes, but CT was there.” (CT was another girl whom Pigwig found it very hard to get on with at nursery).

Me: “Oh, OK. So, how did that go?”

Pigwig: “Well, CT was overcome with evil!”.

Me: “Uh…wuh? [trying to maintain composure] What did you do, sweetheart?”

Pigwig: “Well [very seriously], I overcame evil with good!”

Me: “Er, riiiight! Did any grown-ups hear you talking about this?”

Pigwig: “No. Can I eat my cake now?”

Me: “Phew! [feeling guilty for embarrassment but not wanting to be labelled a religious fanatic] I mean, sure!”

We did go on to have a really good chat about what “overcoming evil with good” meant and it turned out she totally got the verse but you have been warned!