Twenty Years. That is how long I have been directing my own choir. Makes me feel old.
In that amount of time there has been one, yes one Christmas season in which I was without a choir. That was in 2013 when we were in the United States on another furlough that only God had planned. And here we are again. Last year during the craze of the Christmas season I don't think I thought I would miss it all if I were not to have it...turns out I do. Being a choir director has become a huge part of who I am. I love it more than teaching piano, more than being in the classroom, even more than leading worship I think. There is just something about it that only others who also love directing choirs would understand. So watching someone else conduct tonight was hard, very hard (thankfully he did a great job so it wasn't also painful.)
Here's the thing though. As much as I love being a choir director, I love being a mom and a wife more. Last week and tonight I was able to just sit in the audience with my husband and watch my children perform, and not have the stress that goes along with getting the performance ready. It was very different than working together as a family to put on the performance, but at least we are still together.
Please continue to pray for us as we adjust to this time in the United States. It was unexpected, but very needed. For those of you who are unaware we are here because of some pretty traumatic events that happened to us in Guatemala. We are okay, none of us are physically harmed, but we needed to be in a safer place as a family for a little while. We had to leave in the middle of a semester and as a teacher that has been very difficult for me to come to terms with. I am so thankful though for a mission board and a home church who care enough about us to make the difficult decision that we would not have been able to make.
Please also pray for CAG and our students and friends there. We know that some students are having a very hard time adjusting to a new director after having been with me for 6 years. I am having a hard time adjusting to not having them as well.
And please, as we enter this season of Advent, remember just what Christmas is really all about. It makes my having to leave Guatemala seem a lot less big to realize that Christ left heaven. Heaven. I'll say it again - heaven. He left heaven to be born amidst a bunch of animals and all that comes with them, for me and for you. He came here not just for Christmas, that was not the end goal. Easter, or as I now like to call it - Resurrection Sunday, and his eventual return - all of that entered the world on that one night (which probably was not so silent when you think about all those tourists in Bethlehem) so many years ago. If He can leave all of that for 33 years, I suppose I can leave Guatemala for a little while if that is what God has asked me to do. What is he asking you to do that maybe looks just a little bit smaller now in the perspective of the reality of Christmas?
One of my favorite pieces of the Christmas season is not one that you would find in many hymnals, I am not even sure where I first learned it. The title is "In the Bleak Midwinter." Some days I feel like that is where I am right now, in the middle of a bleak Midwinter. But the song is not about sadness. Read the lyrics below, please, and meditate on what they mean to you this season.
In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan,
earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;
snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,
in the bleak midwinter, long ago.
2. Our God, heaven cannot hold him, nor earth sustain;
heaven and earth shall flee away when he comes to reign.
In the bleak midwinter a stable place sufficed
the Lord God Almighty, Jesus Christ.
3. Angels and archangels may have gathered there,
cherubim and seraphim thronged the air;
but his mother only, in her maiden bliss,
worshiped the beloved with a kiss.
4. What can I give him, poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb;
if I were a Wise Man, I would do my part;
yet what I can I give him: give my heart.
