Whew! That Was Close!

This was a great day. Not every minute, necessarily -- there were stresses, but I think the way everything worked out despite the stresses only served to heighten the joy.

Today I awoke tired. Accomplished Bible devotions with the girls, during which I actually prayed that God would help me get over my guilty feelings for stuffing the girls in the gym nursery for an hour. We went to the gym, Fifi walked a treadmill with me, and then went up to join her sisters while I did strength training. What did we see when we walked in? A brand new, bigger, better "jumpy castle!" All three girls loved it, and Fifi later reminded me that, "The Lord sure did answer your prayer about not feeling guilty putting us in the gym nursery!"

Later, I helped Fifi get over her math attitude to find success in the work. Stole a couple of minutes here and there at the piano to practice my notes and their accompanying French, German-Latin and I don't even know what other languages in the music required for tonight's concert performance. Thanked the Lord that I'm not doing any solos!

Spent a little bit of time labeling the mish-mash of pieces in my music folder -- 14 of them, tutti -- almost all of them copied back-to-back, but not in performance order. Scrambled a little bit to find all the appointed pieces to the concert uniform. Thanked the Lord for Fifi who seems to know where everything in this house is at any given moment!

Folded a load of laundry before heading out the door for early call. Stopped by the store for an eat-on-the-run nutrition bar and some flowers for our Associate Artistic Director. Got in the car, pushed the "clock" button and started praying that somehow I'd make it to the call on time despite my stop of good intentions. Thanked the Lord when I did!

Prayerfully began eviction proceedings on the infectious narcissist "living inside my head, rent-free," and found great joy and relief in singing the Christ-honoring compositions of the Baroque and Renaissance period with talented and committed musicians of a higher caliber than myself.

A week ago, we were. not. ready. Frighteningly so, I'm afraid. It was bad enough to afford an extra, weekend rehearsal that almost nobody showed up to. It was not looking good.

But I prayed. I suspect the conductor prayed. I would guess that my friend Katherine did as well. And then, the whole choir prayed together before our procession; we hadn't done that before as far as I know. And by His grace, we pulled it off! It all came together. Perhaps I shouldn't be so surprised, because God is so good that way. I should call it -- awe.

But I think my favorite thing about today was a very short moment with a choir collegue in which something I said or did was greeted with a genuine smile of acceptance. Not a polite smile. Not a simple friendly smile, or a smile for lack of better thing to say -- but a real, sincere, "I appreciate you for that," smile -- and it made me want to smile like that at others, every chance I get, because I want everybody to feel that good.