A Five-in-a-Row Christmas Candy Crush Day

As tired as I was, I couldn't sleep last night.  I laid in bed for hours, rehearsing the day. After ten days of self imposed, home bound living, rich interaction awakened me. Long into the night.

My body still needs rest, so coffee sits in a mug on my nightstand while my legs are stretched comfortably in bed. Here, I sort my thoughts.

It was a less than perfect day in many regards. My body betrayed me before noon. Wobbly legs carried me from church back to bed where I rested before accompanying an afternoon concert. Sinus pressure, lessened to some degree by two days of antibiotics, forced me to reach for extra drugs in hopes of countering the dizzy feeling that left me off kilter.

I missed a few notes in the second measure of the first song. No one probably noticed, but I did. And since I'd never missed them before, I was a little concerned about the rest of the performance. And as the concert progressed, I definitely hit more wrong notes than I had in rehearsal. But no one cared.

In the end, not even me.

For when I play at my parent's church, I feel at home, surrounded by folks who've known me since I was five, maybe ten. They've been praying for me a long time and know my story well. The older I get, the more I value that connection: the rich history that comes from walking in relationship with those who cling to the cross like me year after year.

An added bonus? They treat me like a rock star.

While I enjoyed seeing so many from my past (including my piano teacher!), I think I lost sleep because my Nathan sang on the back row, just two spots down from mom. He recently secured a place to live as he begins a new job at a great school today. Doing what I love with my son, surrounded by so many who are woven deep into the fabric of my life, blew fuses in my brain... like when I line up five candy's of the same color in Candy Crush Saga and the power ball forms and ignites all over the screen.

Simply put, yesterday was a five-in-a-row, exploding candy crush day.

I maneuvered gingerly through much of it.

Held the walls as I left church in the morning to maintain balance.

Rested for an hour and half.

Then loaded up on meds, rode in a car forty minutes, and took my place on the bench in front of the keyboard.

While I'm grateful for the day, I sometimes wish I could play without the physical drama involved. But perhaps that's what makes it all the more beautiful: The prism lenses. The pain. The fatigue. A weak right hip and thigh braced so pedaling won't wear it out.

He came in a manger after all. And shepherds, who lived in solitude, heard the angels sing. Maybe the quiet places, the dusty, dingy places, and the hard to overcome challenges, make the music all the sweeter. The message more clear. The birth, all that matters.

So relish your challenge this season. Embrace the solitude if you must. Wait for the five-in-a-row candy crush moment, for a long time even. 

It will come. Because He is here.

I'll close by sharing a recording of a song we performed yesterday. The melody haunts me in a profound way. We didn't have an orchestra or a choir of trained voices. But we gave it our all.




photo credit: Bogdan Suditu via photopin cc
photo credit: sarowen via photopin cc
photo credit: kevin dooley via photopin cc