My Life Today

So, last night, rather late, I learned that:

1. My 1:45 student, who comes from out of town for a one hour lesson every other week, had a family conflict today and wanted to "re-arrange" her lesson.

2. My Mom, my Muffin, and my Son-in-love, JB, all went to see their doctors yesterday. Muffin has a low fever and infection and feels sluggish. He was told to drink cranberry juice. JB is on the end of a possible gall bladder attack and has a standing order for a scan for the GB if it flares again.

3. Nannie has severe nerve compression pain and an MRI is ordered for tomorrow morning at 6:45 a.m.

Much later after learning those three news items I also got email that my friend got a very bad report from her doctor yesterday and went home with oxygen. Doctor's opinion is that tumors are causing all her breathing problems and she will be bedridden within a couple of weeks.

Today I filled the car with gasoline and went to Bible study. My friend was not at the study this morning and my thoughts and prayers were directed toward her so much that I was very distracted from other subjects. I also stayed awake late praying for her and prayed more before starting my afternoon teaching. In between praying and lunch I called another student who came in the time slot vacated by the out of town student. Then I got email from the out of town student wanting a make up day and time. I explained the policy: one make up day a semester for all missed lessons and the make-ups are in master classes. (This is on my web site.) I taught nine students between 1:45-6:30. Maybe two of them had actually practiced this week. I ate a very quick supper and went to the gym until it closed, then called my Mom to ask about taking her to her appointment in the morning.

By 11:00 pm I had also written seven thank you notes, received an email in SHOUTING CAPITAL LETTERS to get an article and calendar information to three publications ASAP, two of which have been submitted for over a week, but that person who is no longer the president or chairman of the event, is not copied on the emails. I had an email informing me of an 80th birthday tomorrow--keep those prayers and cards coming, folks! I reached my Mom on the second phone call and was berated for not calling her cell phone when I couldn't reach her on her house phone. By the time I reached her she had also made other arrangements for transportation in the morning, reminding me that I had not called her or checked back with her about the appointment. I guess I should have done that first thing this morning from the gas station or the church parking lot. And I learned that one family member thinks another family member has lied to us "quite a lot" and doesn't give us an accurate picture of the lifestyle. Oh, I also worked out at the gym for an hour.

Muffin gave me two nice CD's for my birthday. One is titled The Overshadowing and the other is The Oil of Heaven. I am ready for a big dose of that oil right now!

Peaceful Heaviness following Whiplash

This morning about twenty of my students played their violins for the cheeriest and largest shopping event of the season in our hometown. The Christmas Carousel is an enormous fundraiser funding ongoing projects in the community and sponsored by the Junior League. I am always honored and thrilled when I receive a call from their event planner, inviting my studio to perform, usually right after the Breakfast with Santa on the first Saturday in November. The aisles are crowded with shoppers, and the merchants show us their best selling products. We play Christmas music which we begin learning in early October and wear our brightest and most colorful christmas clothes, a visual and auditory delight to our audience, hopefully.

The pace of the performance is moderately quick with other groups standing in the 'wings' of the snack area waiting to take their place onstage. Our signature piece is Twinkle Twinkle Little Star Theme and Variations, and we play that first and last on our program so that all twenty students can participate. During the performing of the other songs the students who do not know them either stand in rest position with their violin under their right arm, or they sit on the stage. Only one person is allowed a music stand and that is the honored advanced student who plays all the harmonies. We arrive early for tuning instruments and answering the inevitable last minute questions, then go onstage row by row and perform for twenty minutes. After the performance many people crowd us to offer sincere thanks for the good music and also for the sheer joy of watching children, ages 5-40something perform together. I love it!

Most years I'm so excited and pumped and generally in the Christmas mood for this event that I just eat up all the attention, the hugs from the kids after the performance, and then Muffin and I stay and shop til we drop. Today I was continually aware that I needed to leave the hall quickly after the performance so that we could take my violin home and arrive at Kathy's service in a timely manner. One of our reunion group sisters came to the church early and placed "Reserved for Acts 29:1 Reunion Group" papers in the seats near the front. I texted them on my way to the church and Muffin parked as close to the door as he could. We had three minutes to spare when we were seated with all the other ladies wearing green.

Last week Kathy asked her pastor, David M., their friend (and ours), Larry B., to officiate her service. She only told us that she and her husband "made arrangements". David spoke to the congregation at large. Larry spoke to the family in particular. You see, Larry has been there. It was thirteen years ago that we stood with him and his first wife, Lana, as she died with cancer. We believed for her healing too. He spoke to that in the service and I needed to hear what he said.

I loved Lana. She taught my children so many things. She was their choir director at church. Their VBS instructor. Their camp counselor. And at school she was Kak's kindergarten teacher. I still remember songs she taught in that class and books they read. The best way I can describe Lana is that she reminded me of Ivory Soap. If you looked inside, at any layer of her, she was 99.9% pure all the way through. What you saw on the outside was what she was on the inside. Today Larry talked about one event of which I was unaware. The day she received the diagnosis that the cancer had returned she said "Damn it! I am so angry about this!" It's the only time in 29 years of marriage to her that he heard her use that word, and he thought she was angry at God, and just couldn't handle that. When he asked her if she was angry with God she looked at him as if he had lost his mind and told him that of course she wasn't angry with God, but at the cancer.

Larry also told of a night when he went to the grocery pharmacy to look for laxatives that would allow Lana some measure of comfort for the damage that cancer had done to her entire digestive system. He totally lost his composure when he realized that he was standing in the non-prescription aisle of a grocery store looking for a cure to cancer. Going to his truck in the parking lot, he cried out to God in anger and frustration and desperation and hopelessness. Afterward he heard the Lord say, "I love you, son". I needed to hear that.

Over the past years it has been hard to lose friends--Lana, Chris, Marlene, now Kathy, and many others. But it is devastating to also lose their families. After a beloved wife or husband dies, so many spouses are uncomfortable continuing in the same church because it is difficult to "move on" past the hurt. So they leave us. And we have to move on without everyone in their family that we loved deeply and stood with in very difficult times. And most of all, we never see them renewed and happy when the grieving is past. When I saw Kathy's family today, with Larry on the podium, I was acutely aware of that.

After Kathy's service we jetted across town to a little Lutheran church where respects were paid to one of my Mom's dear friends, Shirley. She bravely fought against acute leukemia for slightly more than one year, was in the hospital for two days, and went to be with Jesus twenty four hours before Kathy. Her family was dear to us. She was dear. Shirley and her husband supported me in my music performances and our family in all our celebrations and griefs.

Immediately after the second service I experienced a sensation of whiplash--from Christmas levity to two funerals--and a peaceful heaviness that remains.

What if?

Catherine Brown, from the UK, wrote this (Except from Elijah List 9/15/09) about Gideon.

Gideon and just one hundred men reached the edge of the camp during the middle watch of the night, just as the guard had changed. Then they blew their trumpets and broke the jars that were in their hands. What a mighty noise that must have been as earth aligned with Heaven and God released His mighty delivering power. Wow! How many unseen angels battled alongside this tiny army on the front lines of the battlefield—only God knows. But the three companies of Gideon's army blew their trumpets with all their hearts and smashed their jars with all their strength, and God moved in mighty power.

They each had a torch in their left hands and a trumpet in their right—what an amazing breakthrough light must have bombarded the darkness when the torches revealed their light to penetrate the thick darkness. A light and a sound were released on earth, and I believe light and sound were released simultaneously from Heaven. A new sound, and a glory light, that delivered God's people from the hands of their enemies. The sound and the light were given and driven by the Spirit of God, and therefore they became a sword in the hands and in the hearts of these surrendered servants. Oh, hallelujah! We live in days when God is going to bring deliverance to whole people groups through a new sound of anointed worship, that will cause the hills to melt and the earth to quake as the Lion of the Tribe of Judah releases His unstoppable roar from Heaven.

What if the instrument had been violins, rather than trumpets? What if 300 violinists played together, in the same key, perfectly in tune, with all their skill and their bows were controlled to move at the same speed on the same pitches at the same time? What would be the acoustic effect on the environment? What would be the emotional effect on the audience? What would be the spiritual effect of 300 people in perfect agreement and unison? What kind of victory would result? What changes would take place?

I know that playing with 25 violinists in unison in an orchestra sets up sympathetic vibrations in all the other instruments. It literally causes the strings on the violas, cellos and basses to vibrate in sympathy and the brass and wood of the other instruments buzzes as the vibrations zing off their parts. When I was pregnant and playing in a symphony my babies in utero would jump or react with music from horns played in unison, or from tympani played on a repeated pitch.

Would Jesus come back if the Body of Christ sang to Him in unison, all over the earth, lifting up their voices to the heavens? Could we literally cause the trees of the field to clap their hands and the rocks to cry out if we did that?

What if.......

Really tired of this!

Last week my dear sister in the Lord, K, was planning a Chrysalis. As Lay Director for that event she had put together a team, prayed, met, made beautiful gifts, prayed more, had more meetings, and was growing more excited each day about the opportunity to pour love into sweet lives of teenage girls who are hungry for more of God.

Last weekend K's Mom died. She had lived a full life and was ready to change her residence to heaven, but that doesn't mean that a family doesn't grieve. K fell ill, thinking she had a 24 hour virus, and couldn't go be with her Mom in those last hours. On Monday she came to our Emmaus reunion group meeting, bringing fresh food from her garden for us to share, saying she had to leave a bit early to go to a doctor's appointment. The doctor ordered tests. He was suspicious of appendicitis. Tuesday night she experienced more sleepless hours in pain with other symptoms. Wednesday, late in the afternoon, she was rushed to emergency exploratory surgery.

Shortly after 8 pm the doctor delivered the news to her husband, sons, and about twenty five Christian friends who had gathered.

K had a malignant tumor the size of a fist removed from her colon. Eighteen inches of her intestine and other tumors attached to the liver were removed as well. The doctor reported "seeds" of other malignancies also. No radiation treatment is recommended. Chemotherapy is advised. She is lying in the hospital, resting under the influence of morphine.

A new director for the Chrysalis is chosen.

K's Mom was buried today. Her memorial service was cancelled.

K's husband must work, so we, her friends, will stay with her at the hospital. He is tired, a little shocky, and we will lift him up in prayer.

K's youngest son, newly married for six months, and his wife, just moved two weeks ago and began new jobs. They need to leave, although the new boss has been very generous. They refuse to accept a dismal, negative outcome.

K's oldest son just graduated from college and is moving to start a new job as well. He has been a warrior and protector for the family and will continue in that capacity.

I am sick and tired of this kind of onslaught against my friends and family members! I hate the works of the devil which Jesus came to destroy! I hate the stealing of lives full of God's promises and destiny! I detest the lying whispers in their ears telling them they should give up and be sick! I am furious that dreams, ideas, lives, missions, and countless other precious treasures have been killed by the diseases and circumstances and words and wounds and entanglements and ambushes and wrong beliefs born of ignorance and misinformation! I am as angry at the forces of darkness in my friends' lives as I was at the terrorists who acted on September 11, 2001! You are in for a big fight, but you might as well surrender, because the blood of Jesus has won this and settled it for eternity!!!!! K and her family are going to win big.

Movie Break

Good day. Slept late. Went to Body Flow. Had a vision. Yep. Right there at Body Flow. During relaxation the teacher said "Title of this song is Fight Day. Are you fighting anything?" And right there on the floor I heard the words "spiritual powers, authorities, wickedness".  Then I felt myself try to do a crunch, but this time it wasn't from a yoga mat. It was from a cross. And I knew that I had been crucified with Christ and was seated in heavenly places and He was the one who did the fighting for me against spiritual wickedness--it is no longer mine to fight.  And all of that happened in about 60 seconds and was preceded by those simple words.  Now that's what I call a bonus from an exercise class!  The Holy Spirit released power in those simple words. 

The remainder of the day was great--grocery shopping, former student's university senior recital, and the movie "Duplicity" and dinner out with Muffin. Lovely!

Galations 2:20 I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me.  And the life I now live I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave His life for me.