That' how love travels

I've been thinking lately about the ways God may be working in our lives without us recognizing it at the time.

Sometimes I think we look for an answer to prayer or some obvious sign that God is doing something, while overlooking the possibility that something we didn't even want may eventually lead us somewhere we never expected to go.

That happened to me with music.

I had stopped playing guitar for about 30 years. When I finally took my guitar out of the closet again, I had forgotten nearly everything. I even had to relearn how to play chords cleanly.

Then one Christmas Eve, Angeline volunteered me to fill in for another guitarist at church who needed surgery and couldn't play.

If anyone had simply asked me whether I wanted to do it, my answer would have been no.

Absolutely not.

I hadn't played in front of an audience in more than 40 years.

I was terrified.

When the time came, my heart was beating so hard and fast that it felt as though it wanted to jump out of my chest.

But I played.

I made some mistakes. At one point I lost my place in the music, and that mistake seemed enormous to me.

But I kept going.

And when the song ended, something happened that I wasn't expecting.

The congregation applauded.

And they kept applauding.

To me it seemed to go on forever.

Standing there after being so frightened, hearing all that encouragement made me feel accepted.

It made me feel as though I belonged.

I survived Christmas Eve.

Then something else happened.

Eric, who is in charge of the church music, told the congregation that Angeline and I would be playing every week in church.

That wasn't a choice either one of us had made.

But we accepted it.

Later, Eric was offered an opportunity to play music at the Lighthouse and turned it down because it didn't pay anything. The Lighthouse is the name of the building where meals are made for the area’s homeless.

So Angeline volunteered us.

There was another choice I hadn't made.

And once again, if someone had simply asked me whether I wanted to do it, I probably would have said no.

But we went.

And now the Lighthouse has become one of the places where I most enjoy playing.

I've met people there I never would have met.

I've seen people who seemed to be at some of the lowest points of their lives smile when they saw us setting up our music.

I've watched songs awaken memories.

I've watched people laugh.

I've watched people sing along.

And I've received blessings I never could have imagined on that frightening Christmas Eve.

Then a few weeks ago something happened that seemed to connect it all together.

An eight-year-old girl was at the Lighthouse with her grandmother. They were homeless.

She wanted to sing her favorite song by herself.

So I began playing.

And then I stopped.

She couldn't sing.

She was frozen with fear.

I knew something about that feeling.

Angeline looked at her and said, "Come sit on my lap and I'll sing it with you."

The little girl climbed onto Angeline's lap.

I slowed the tempo so she could keep up, and together they began to sing.

When the song ended, I started clapping.

For a moment I thought perhaps I would be the only one.

I wasn't.

The servers and the people in the room joined in and gave that little girl a mountain of encouragement.

And suddenly my mind went back to Christmas Eve.

I remembered standing there alone with my guitar, frightened nearly beyond words.

I remembered making mistakes.

I remembered getting through the song anyway.

And I remembered the sound of people applauding afterward and how their acceptance made me feel.

Now, all this time later, I was sitting on the other side of that experience.

This time I was helping someone else get through her fear.

And when she finished, a room full of people gave her the same gift that had once been given to me.

Looking back, I realize there was one thing I had to contribute to all of this: willingness.

I had to become willing to be uncomfortable.

I didn't have to stop being afraid before I played that Christmas Eve. I only had to be willing to play while I was afraid.

Maybe we sometimes wait for fear to disappear before taking the next step, when the next step itself is what teaches us that fear doesn't have to decide where we go.

I didn't know what waited on the other side of my discomfort. I only knew I was uncomfortable.

God had a better view.

I couldn't have planned any of this.

In fact, if I had been given the choice at several points along the way, I probably would have chosen differently.

Maybe that's something worth remembering when we're wondering where God is in our lives.

Sometimes we recognize His work immediately.

Sometimes we don't recognize it until much later.

And sometimes the thing we're frightened of, resisting, or wishing we could avoid becomes part of an answer we couldn't possibly see yet.

I don't know where every road leads.

I'm learning that maybe I don't need to.

Sometimes all I can do is take the next step and trust that God sees farther down the road than I do.

Because one frightened man stood in a church on Christmas Eve and discovered that people would support him.

And much later, when a frightened little girl couldn't find her voice, he knew enough to stop, slow down, and give her the time she needed to find it.

Then everyone else joined in.

And that's how love travels.