sooo, yesterday was thanksgiving day and we had a couple of family gatherings to attend…quite a bit of driving to do, but nothing to get excited about…we were able to visit with family from illinois, texas, kentucky, and all over ohio…we have family staying at our house from missouri…it’s been good this year…it’s been a long time since we’ve been able to visit with some family and others, it’s their first time to be a part of our family for the holiday…good times!!!
but there was this 15 minute time span yesterday that will stick with me forever…i was chasing molly through the house (making sure that she didn’t break anything)…and i wound up in the front room of my grandparents’ house…i had a seat on the piano bench and it wasn’t minutes later that i was asked to pull out a hymnal and play…STOP…
can i say that sight reading is not a strength of mine, let alone when it comes to a hymnal…pretty much every song that was called out had somewhere from three to five flats…not to mention the countless accidentals throughout the song…let’s just say it wasn’t pretty!!! GO…
they got grandpa to come in the front room and sit next to me in a chair…he has always loved to sing…but in recent years his health has really been failing…his activities are limited and singing in the men’s chorus hasn’t been on the list of activities for quite some time…but boy did he sing…i can’t say for sure who all was in the room, because my eyes were glued to the notes on the pages…but there was only one voice that my ear was tuned in to…just over my left shoulder…he was SINGING…and right along with that one voice you could hear the sniffles of all the grown men and women in the room, as they watched and listened to their father…he was SINGING!!!
i’ve done a lot of singing throughout my life…some big venues…others not so big…but very few of those opportunities have impacted me the way that i was impacted yesterday…in 15 short minutes…
it had nothing to do with the songs that were sung…it had nothing to do with how good/bad the pianist was playing…it had everything to do with the heart of the man that was singing…it had everything to do with the God that he was singing to…it had everything to do with the stories behind these songs and what they meant to him…this weekend i will lead worship for at least 1500 people…i can only pray that people will sing like my grandpa was singing…i pray that i will sing like he was singing(and that i’ll play a little better on the keys and the guitar!!!)…
it wasn’t pretty…but it left an impact…
