Getting Ready

I began piano lessons at the age of eight from a Benedictine Nun named Sister Angela and I hated practicing as most. But what I did enjoy was playing MY songs. I started to compose music and I even had one of my pieces of music entered into a contest of young composers when I was about nine. When I entered my later teens I did get to play for a few weddings and even wrote a song for my friends wedding, but it was painful to play in public as I was much to shy.
After I became a christian I was asked if I would help out with a ministry of bringing music and church to those with special needs, and this seemed like something that I could do, so off I went with my guitar. I learned the old church songs that they preferred and all of us would sing at the top of our lungs and there was rarely a dry eye. It was at that time I realized that when someone is paralyzed from the neck down they cant use kleenex as others, so I had the added job of going from chair to chair to dry their eyes and blow their noses. We definately had church!!
I found that playing the piano was one of the most theraputic things I could do when I was upset. While others would mouth off, I didnt, I would get on my piano and play and play until all of that energy was gone and I'd feel better. So when my kids were little, and they were off to bed I would play, sometimes for hours. They fell asleep to music. As the years went by I had more and more pieces of music and many of these songs came out of difficulties that I was going through at the time. Some had words, others didnt. But each one was very special to me. I could hear parts in my head and sometimes I would even awake with a melody and voices and I would run down to my piano and get it on paper before I would forget.
Most of these songs were started but never finished until I got through whatever situation I was going through at the time. Sometimes it would be months or years before I had finished the song. I have had and still do have many pieces of songs on pieces of paper or napkins or whatever I had close by at the time.
Over the years I began to believe that God was giving me the music and my confidence in Him grew and I played a little more in front of people and got over the fear, I always wondered what all the music was for, as it got me through difficult times and comforted me in the darkest hours, and I wondered if it would do the same for others.
So for these last few months, I have been gathering the pieces of paper together and making it ready to have my music recorded. God told me the time is now. I am going to an old Catholic church which has been converted to a recording studio. Interesting enough, this church was a church that I worshipped at when I was twenty. I remember loving it because of the acoustics. Three people could sing and the whole place was full of music. And pardon me for saying but you know how Catholics are? they usually dont sing very loud because their afraid of being heard, but it didnt matter one bit in this church. Maybe they should build more like it. lol. And by the way, didnt God say, Make a Joyful Noise? So, Im going to make a joyful noise of praise almost thirty years later and I dont care who hears me.

Forward

I have waited and prayed for years for this time in my life. This blog will be a written diary of my attempts to finally make the calling on my life a reality.
Im 50 and this last year as Ive been thinking about it, I felt that it would be tinged with a bit of sadness if I wasnt able to at least start to walk out what I believe God has called me to do. I, like you have been busy with other things all of these years, just as important. A marriage, children, family. There was always so much to do, and because I did it everyday it became familiar to me. But this new adventure will be an unfamiliar path and Im walking it alone with the Lord. Sure it would be so much easier to stay on the same one Ive been going around on for a number of years. But I was tiring of it. Same old views. However; on this new path Im not sure of the end, I dont have a map, just a starting point, and I dont even recognize the trees or the flowers through the bushes. If I get lost out here, maybe someone will have pity on me and show me the way through.
Seven years ago my marriage ended. Twenty-three years of my life all over because of a love-affair with a christian co-worker. I cannot convey to you the grief. My life was over and a part of me died back there. It has taken me years to get over it. My future was pretty well mapped out. I was going to be married forever and devote myself fully to my children (I was a stay at home mother)until they graduated from college and at that time my plan was that I was going to help the poor and motherless children who live on an island in the caribbean. I also knew that this was Gods call on my life.
I had lived on that island for a few years as a child because of my Dads job and the people there left a indelible mark upon my life. Over the years I would try to get back to my island home as much as I could and I always had a suitcase or two with toys and gifts for the children. I never knew exactly where the presents were going until I would get there and God would show me where the gifts belonged. Without even being intentional my personal ministry was born.
When my life was shattered into a million pieces I grieved because everyone of my dreams were taken from me.......but..............something miraculous has happened in the midst of great pain and suffering. A new life for me has emerged and it seems that this one is better then the other one. I hope that maybe this journal will be an encouragement to anyone out there whose life like mine was broken into a million little pieces. Your trying so hard to pick the mess up. But you and I know that rarely can any of us put the vase back together without it looking like it was broken and we would forever make excuses for it saying, "It was a beautiful vase, but then it broke, I tried to put it back together the best I could." But all you would see is the cracks and no matter how hard you tried to cover them you would always know that it had been broken and the pain would never go away because you carried with you the reminder. But guess what? I found out the most amazing truth in this journey of mine? When I gave my broken life to God hoping He would fix it, He didnt glue the pieces back together! He gave me a new vessel and with it a new beginning!! So, here goes...........................