Scattered Pieces

I stood in the back of the middle school auditorium.
The same auditorium that served as the cafeteria.
The tables were removed to accommodate the chairs.
Chairs were set up in rows so the parents could support their children.

I had been in this room many times before.
I sat for orchestra concerts, choral concerts, jazz concerts, and award nights.
This day was different.
This day was a culmination of study on the Civil War.

Students recited, performed, and dressed in costume.
My daughter searched high and low for a long dress reminiscent of the times.
She finally found one.
The mother of her dear friend had an old bridesmaid dress that would be perfect.

The dress with the wide skirt was brought home and tried on.
It would do just fine.
It wasn’t the dress that all eyes would see.
It was the music that all ears would hear.

My daughter had chosen to play a song on her violin.
She chose the beautiful piece, Ashokan Farewell.
Written by Jay Ungar in 1982, this song was played as a farewell waltz.
A farewell waltz at the Ashokan Fiddle and Dance Camps run by Ungar and his wife.

The song sounds much like a Scottish lament.
It was used as the theme song for the PBS miniseries, The Civil War, which aired in 1990.
When the Ashokan Fiddle and Dance Camps came to an end, feelings were put to music.
Ungar described the melody as having “a sense of loss and longing.”

My daughter practiced the song over and over.
The melody filled our home.
The melody was in my head.
It was a quiet song with a lonesome sound.

The day came for the performance.
By the time I got there, no seats were available.
I stood in the back.
Being tall, I was able to see everything clearly.

Being tall, my daughter could see me as well.
Our eyes met.
Love, pride, and confidence were conveyed in my gaze.
She put her music on the stand and the violin below her chin.

She began the first few notes.
You could have heard a pin drop.
A sweet melody was coming out of the violin of the girl in the period dress.
In the blink of an eye, it happened.

The pages of her music fell to the floor and scattered across the stage.
A audible gasp filled the audience.
If I could have willed them to fly back up to the stand, I would have done just that.
I felt helpless; except for the fact that I could pray for her.

She quietly laid her violin down.
She gathered each page, one by one.
I tried to remember if the pages were numbered.
I knew they were not.

She would have to put the pages back in order.
Lord, please help her remain calm; help her sort the pages correctly.
She deliberately placed the pages on the stand.
She picked up her violin and began.

The beautiful melody filled the auditorium.
The young girl stayed calm and focused in the face of something unexpected.
The song could not have been lovelier.
The overwhelming support in the room was palpable.

For God is not a God of disorder but of peace. (1 Corinthians 14:33)

How many times do the pages of our lives seem to scatter on the floor?
How many times does our life seem shuffled, scrambled, and chaotic?
There seems to be no sequence, no chronological order to the events.
They just happen and we have to respond.

What was supposed to sound lovely now sounds discordant.
What was to look polished and practiced now looks disheveled.
This is not what we signed up for.
This is not what we expected.

Here we are in our appropriate clothes, ready for anything, except this.
We have to lay aside what we rehearsed to step out into the unknown.
We don’t step out alone.
At that crucial moment, all we know and all we believe come to the surface.

All the practicing has paid off.
All the rehearsing has not been in vain.
We can respond on the Truth we have tucked away in our heart.
When the world is in shambles at our feet, we are standing on Solid Ground.

We can pick up the pieces that the enemy tried to use for our destruction.
We can gather ourselves and begin again.
We begin to play the song in a new way.
And the melody is lovely.

In Christ, there is a new song to sing.
There is a new melody that replaces the scattered pieces of our lives.
The scattered, broken pieces that He gathers and puts together in perfect peace.
There is a sense of longing for that day when He will make all things new.

 

2 responses to “Scattered Pieces”

1. Beautiful story and blog. Who else but our God can make us whole?

   Reply

   • No one, Sue!
     We look for other things and other people to put us back together, but only God can do that. Only God can make us whole!
     Gina

     Reply