Journey to My Friend: Part 4

Part 4: ♫ Oh, Holy Night ♫


Singing Christmas carols, I hacked my way down the row of corn. It was hot, I was hungry, and the corn leaves slashed my bare arms. The weeds were thick, the machete was dull and the row was endlessly long. So I sang to myself--Christmas carols--every single one I could remember. I wish I could say that I felt cooler or that the hours flew by...alas, it was still one hundred degrees and there were still just as many hours until dark as before. But now my mind was occupied with trying to remember all the verses of every Christmas song I could think of. As I worked, I sang and the unhappy, bitter thoughts were replaced by thoughts of the quietness of a holy, dark night. In my imagination, the night sky burst into glory as an angel shared the news that was to impact the entire world. And someday soon, it was to impact me in a personal way.

Journey to My Friend: Part 3

Part 3: ♫ Whispering Hope ♫

Before our summertime visits with the grandparents ended, my dear little Grandma shared with me her desire that I should take piano lessons and her hope that I could learn to play some of her favorite hymns: 'In the Garden', 'How Great Thou Art', 'Whispering Hope' and 'Beautiful Isle of Somewhere.'

I was a willing student but not naturally gifted. Sadly,the lessons lasted less than a year. After this, I struggled along by myself for awhile and learned to play several hymns--always in the keys of C, G, or F because I couldn't handle very many sharps or flats! And I never did figure out rhythm.

My repertoire included: 'When I Survey the Wondrous Cross', 'Oh, Sacred Head', and 'Silent Night'. (note: this is still pretty much the extent of my repertoire)

Then my step-dad decided my inexpert playing (I'm sure that is putting it mildly) was too much for any sane person to bear and my gospel piano career came to a screeching halt.

Journey to My Friend: Part 2

Part 2: ♫ For the Beauty of the Earth ♫

The first real hymn I remember learning was For the Beauty of the Earth. I loved the first line: "For the beauty of the earth, for the glory of the skies..." Spending virtually all of my waking non-school hours outdoors, I had a great appreciation for God's creation. Even though I didn't know God, I knew of God because His creation spoke to me of Him daily. I wanted to know more than the tidbits I had learned in my sporadic, brief spurts of Sunday School and Vacation Bible School. Those tidbits only whetted my appetite for more. But it was not to be--at least, not at that friendly little Methodist church. Sunday School, church, Vacation Bible School and summer visits with my grandparents came to an end as we kids became more useful out in the field.

I vividly remember a bit of childish reasoning that occurred about this time. I had not a doubt or question in my mind that God created all I saw. Then it came to me to wonder about God. Who created God? And I answered my own query with the singularly satisfying yet mystifying response, "God, of course." I remember laughing at myself. It was like looking at myself in the mirror, holding a mirror, looking at myself in the mirror, holding a mirror...It didn't seem to ever end and I wondered if it ever began...or if it just always was. (John 1)

Journey to My Friend: Part 1

Part 1: ♫ What a Friend We Have in Jesus ♫

Before I became a Christian, the concept of a heavenly Father was less than appealing due to my own experience with fathers. An inattentive and mostly absent father, and then a controlling, unkind stepfather made certain of that.

But a friend? I could use a friend...

I think the journey began in a small-town Methodist church with wooden pews, simple colored glass windows and a paper fan in front of each hymnal. It was one of those rare Sundays (soon to become obsolete) spent with my grandparents in the tiny town of Diller, Nebraska, population 394. They had sent my two brothers and me to Sunday School at the church a few blocks from their home. Shyly, I asked if I could stay for church. This was a huge thing. I had to have been less than 8 years old and excruciatingly shy. I didn't know anyone there and had no idea of what to expect, yet the desire of my heart was to go to church.

Sitting by myself, I drank it all in--the sunlight streaming through the windows, wooden floors that creaked as people walked by and an indescribable smell of oldness. I don't remember the sermon at all; it was probably full of mile-long words that had no meaning for me. But the music spoke to me! The lovely, old timey Gospel hymns told me of a Friend and thus began my journey.

Journey to my Friend: prelude

Prelude: ♫...Jesus sought me when a stranger...♫

Even now, after all these years, it still seems presumptuous for me to make the claim that God sought me. Yet, how would I have known to seek Him? How would I have known there was a God to seek? What could have put this desire in my decidedly sinful heart? I knew I was a sinner; I knew there was no good thing in me, oh, how clearly I knew that. Yet as conscious as I was of my sin, I also knew there was a God with a Solution for my sin.

He Will Never Pass This Way Again

He looked up at me, with shining, expectant eyes that seemed to be saying, "I killed it, Mommy. I wasted it."

He was so proud of himself and thrilled at his accomplishment. And it wasn't exactly an easy thing to do. He had worked very hard.

But I couldn't praise him. I felt no pride at his perseverance.

All the time he had spent stalking it...swallowed up in his triumphant victory...a hollow victory in my eyes. Would he look back someday and wish, even at that tender age, that he had made a different choice?

He doesn't realize how each one is fleeting and finite. He is too young to understand that once one is gone, it will never come back. He looks around and sees so many; to him, there's enough to go around, plenty to squander and kill.

He has beaten his best score on the computer game he has been playing lately. My son has learned to kill time.