The Gift of Music

My friends and colleagues were the ones telling me that I didn’t need to try to teach at our Homeschool Tutorial during this….this time. We were a very young church and Children’s Choirs were going to be started in another year. So I wouldn’t be teaching music and I wouldn’t be directing Kid’s Choir. My world had been flipped upside down just a few weeks earlier with a diagnosis of Stage 3 Breast Cancer. We did 6 months of chemotherapy to shrink the tumor first and my doctors wanted to schedule the mastectomy in January.

However, in January 2012 I was scheduled to be the keynote speaker at Children’s Worship University. I was so excited. Then it came time to schedule the surgery.  I had one of three options in January and all of them were going to knock me out of my speaking engagement. My only other option was to wait until the first of March, and I honestly don’t remember now why my doctor didn’t want me to wait.

So I called my precious friend and co-writer, Kathie Hill.  She graciously took the job for me. I remember thinking when going in to the surgery, “All I have to do is heal from this and then I can get back to life.” Stupid cancer had other plans. They found cancer in the lymph nodes and I needed more chemotherapy and radiation. When it was all said and done, I knew that I may not get to teach anymore.  I questioned whether or not that was something God still wanted me to do. Through the rest of that summer and the next year God would gently teach me that my identity was not in being a writer, a mom, a wife, a music teacher, a piano teacher, or a Kid’s Choir Director.  My identity is that I am a child of the King of Kings and he made me for His glory. I am very blessed that He also showed me that He had not changed my calling. Until I hear differently from the Lord, I will continue teaching.

Once I got back to Kid’s Choir and in the classroom, I was aware of an urgency that seemed to be burning inside of me for children to know and understand the gift that music is and that it is from God.  If we keep our praise silent, the rocks and hills will cry out in our place.

I knew I was to teach but what about writing and sharing with other teachers.  Well, for now the Lord has not changed that instruction either. This January 23 and 24 I am slated again to speak at Children’s Worship University in Dallas.  I could not be more excited. I feel as if the Lord has brought me full circle.  The Music Mom was also born from this journey and begin one year ago. And now finally, the writing assignments are coming again.

You can see January is a month that marks several milestones for me.  I am beyond blessed.  Blessed that Jesus saved me. Blessed that he called me to teach music. And blessed daily by His gift of music.