Weekend in Review

When I try to look at the weekend and sum it up, I'm tempted to use standard, trite phrases. "It went well," or "We had our good points and bad points, but overall I was pleased." But let me digress for a moment.

I'm dichotomous. My conscience tends to be supersensitive, but when it comes to sensing the spiritual dimension, I seem about as sensitive as a cement wall.

On Friday, there were three people that had health issues in rapid succession. First, a girl goes down with athsma and must be taken to the hospital, cutting our first program short. Then, on the way to York, another of the choir has to go to the hospital and another begins hurting. It's like, what is up? It seems as if there has to be something more than coincidence going on, something spiritual. But I don't feel anything like that. I can only deduce that some spiritual battle may be taking place because of the events.

LY says that he's seen it happen this way numerous times: During times of ministry Satan attacks. When you're on the front lines, troubles will come along with triumphs. If only I knew - really knew - what kind of spiritual battles were really going on. Maybe I'd feel foolish for even thinking that these incidents were anything more than God's plan to strengthen us. Or maybe I'd feel foolish for being so stupid as not to read the obvious signs of spiritual struggle that were placed directly in front of me.

But be that as it may, God promises that He'll work things together for good for us, and I claim that promise. From the sickness, stress, and struggle, Jesus will make something beautiful.

But there were more than problems during the weekend, though. The choir did very well (trite phrase, sorry). It obviously wasn't one full of exclusively great singers, and as a result we weren't close to perfect musically. It's difficult for me to know how much to pound on certain things that needed to be better, but couldn't be made so for whatever reason. It's also difficult for me to objectively evaluate how good we were. I heard some extremely gracious, encouraging compliments, and I appreciate them a whole lot. I heard the group from the inside out sometimes, and there were warts. But that's ok. I pushed them to at least their musical limit, which is scary but good I think. They responded well for the most part (another close-to-trite phrase, sorry again) and as a result, I think we developed a good program.

And they gave me goosebumps more than once. I Know I've Been Changed rocked (the soloists ... wow!), we were all over We Shall Not Give Up the Fight, we did nice versions of When I Think of the Cross and In the Arms of Sweet Deliverance, and the girls did a beautiful job on both their group song and the one in which only four of them sang.

But beyond the music, I pray that we touched somebody we sang to. Again, I had no ephiphany-like moment when I knew that we had made a connection, but I trust we did. It was a new experience, being in charge of a group like this, challenging me as a spiritual leader more than anything else. It was indeed a wonderful experience for me, one that I'll appreciate for a long time. And God was faithful, no matter if things weren't so ordinary and even if we didn't feel Him or see His plan. He was/is/will be faithful!