Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris Sing ‘The Sweetest Gift’

Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris Sing ‘The Sweetest Gift’

Three musical legends - Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris - gave a moving and touching performance of a song about a mother’s enduring and unending love for her troubled son.

The world is full of fallen people living in sin and shame. Since that first act of sin and disobedience so long ago, that bite of the forbidden fruit in the garden, sin has wreaked havoc on our world. It has destroyed lives and brought about diseases, anger, resentment and war. 

However, while sin continues to destroy, there are some special people in the world who will not stop loving the sinner regardless of how far they fall. Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris sing “The Sweetest Gift,” a song about a mother’s continued love for her son who finds himself in prison.

Prisons are full of people who have messed up, fallen on the wrong side of the law. But as the three talented women sing, one mother still loves her “erring but precious son.” 

In fact, the song’s lyrics point out that she still loves her obviously troubled son so much that she must tell someone. She informs the prison warden just how much she loves her son.

While the mother does not have a way to get her son out of his current predicament, she brings something else. And it’s not something that someone in her son’s position would need to get out, but, as the song mentions, it’s much greater.

“She brought no silver, no pomp or style
It was a halo bright sent down from heaven’s light
The sweetest gift, a mother’s smile”

While her son has screwed up and must pay his debt to society for his transgressions, his mother will not abandon him. She is staying by his side. She loves him no matter what he may do, simply because he is her child.

This song is a terrific example of an unceasing, unending and most importantly, undeserved love. God’s love, mercy and grace are like this mother’s love for her son, which is also undeserved and unending.

Romans 5:8 “But God has made clear his love to us, in that, when we were still sinners, Christ gave his life for us.”

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