Master Weaver? !!!

This is one of those life stories I’ll share with you not necessarily because I’m proud of some of the choices I’ve made, but because of the amazing grace of God it points up! Now, I know the Bible says that “all things work together for good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose,” and I’ve heard God referred to as a “Master Weaver” of sorts, intricately putting all the fragments of our lives together to make a beautiful masterpiece. I know the scripture is true, but the “Master Weaver"-thing? For the longest, I simply was not sure! By the time I reached by mid to late twenties, I'd veered far from my early path of closely following Jesus Christ. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I was going to Church, making a good show of the “religion-thing”, but in my heart I knew I was a lost cause. You see, I had made too many wrong choices, and that little voice deep within kept telling me that God could never use anyone with such a “past”! No matter how many sermons I heard, or books I read, nothing could get past the negative message in my mind. I knew that at my young age, I had messed up and God was finished with me. I was the most hopeless human on the planet. I was weary, restless, and searching, but for what I didn’t know. On a hot, sticky day on the backstreets of Southside Birmingham, Alabama I rode in my beat-up, un-air-conditioned car, searching for something to listen to on the radio. Everything about the day was miserable. The most miserable part of it? Me! At a red light, I relentlessly turned the radio dial back and forth until I hit on a station. From my little in-dash radio now flowed the most beautiful orchestration! Melodies and harmonies such as I had never heard. It was enough to make me stop in my tracks. I ceased searching, dropped my hand from the knob, and stared at at it as though I were staring at the orchestra itself. Even after the stop light turned green, I remained there. Soon, the lyric of the song began, and though I could not know it then, my life would never be the same.

“He’s been faithful to me. Even though I have questioned, even failed to believe, He’s been faithful, faithful to me.”

I could barely fathom that God would remain faithful to me in spite of my questions, my complete failure of Him. Over the next weeks and months, from the tiny seed planted in my heart and mind by the words of that song, I was able to overcome the lies of the voice of negativity that had ruled my mind for so very long. Truth was that God was not finished with me, God is never finished with us! There is nothing we can do to mess up His love for us! I found that in spite of my wrong choices, God was waiting for me with open arms and a loving, forgiving heart, as He is for every one of His children! If I had not heard the orchestration that slowed me down long enough to hear the words of that song, I shudder to think where I would be today. I often wondered about who composed it, about who sang the song, and thanked God continually for them both. I prayed I would one day be able to meet and thank them in person. I got the chance to meet the recording artists almost eleven years later. I attended a Music Conference in Brooklyn, New York sponsored by the choir that originally recorded the song! I was thrilled, overwhelmed, actually, to attend the conference itself and to have the opportunity to express my thanks to choir members in person. However, I must admit, I was NOT quite as overwhelmed by the some of break-out sessions being offered at the conference that year. (Can't have it all, I guess!) So, I decided that as a default, I'd just attend an orchestral session with my husband, John, an excellent musician. If all else failed and the session was of absolutely no interest to me, I could spend the time making “To Do” lists, a favorite activity of mine! As it worked out, that is exactly what I spent the session doing! I found that I was, indeed, about as interested in "all things instrumental and orchestral" as I would have been in "all things hunting, and tree-stand building" (sorry, John!) I was almost finished with my Christmas gift list, when the session speaker, prolific composer and world renowned orchestrator and musician, Lari Goss, was wrapping up the "Question and Answer" period. “Oh Thank God, I thought, almost lunch time! One last question and we’ll be out of here!” The last question was something about inspiration for writing songs. I half listened to the answer as I put my lists away. Mr. Goss spoke about all the different parts of song writing inspiration, but then he began talking about those times when songwriting takes on unique urgency, times when one knows a song is being used of the Holy Spirit in a very special way. He spoke of many times in his own career when those urgings were so strong he would miss sleep, meals, or time with his family to work on music because he knew the importance of a particular song. A change in his voice voice caused me to look up, directly at him. It seemed he was looking directly at me. And at that moment it happened, he mentioned THE SONG as an example of one of those "special songs"...the one I’d heard that day in my car all those years before. Standing before me, not two feet away was the one who composed the orchestration that had caused me to stop long enough to hear a lyric God used to change my life forever. All the wondering about the composer, who he was, how he had come about composing that music, ended right then, right there, that day. I was overwhelmed at the mighty hand of God - how He had so masterfully, intricately, beautifully weaved it all together for me. And while I understand that there is no waste in God’s economy--that song was used to change the lives of many, many people; I also realize that God cared enough for me to impress upon the composer a sense of urgency so that He, God, could keep a life-changing date with me on a hot-sticky summer day in Southside Birmingham, Alabama. Not only did God change my life, in His own beautiful time, He brought me thousands of miles to meet, face to face, not only the people who recorded the song, but the one who orchestrated the music that stopped me in my tracks that day~everything I'd asked Him for so very long ago. God, a Master Weaver? I think so. And maybe we do not always have to wait until the end of our lives to see the finished masterpiece. Perhaps, from time to time He gives us glimpses of the beautiful work He is doing in our lives. I know I’ve had peek and it is magnificent!