It is only 3 days away!
My Senior Recital is on Sunday! Can you believe it? This is the biggest event in a music student’s college career. My parents are on their way, I have put the posters up, worked on the music for over a year and practiced for 2 hours a day. I am ready. Everything will be perfect. Right?
Laryngitis. It hits like a bomb, destroying the hopes and dreams of a vocalist near future. That was the unfortunate story of my life last week. I had a Benefit Recital planned as a fundraiser for my World Race last weekend but had to cancel it because I could not even talk. It was devastating. But in the darkness there is light. At least I did not get sick for the most important recital, my Senior Recital, which would have been 10x harder to reschedule. I have seen God through the encouragement of others this past week and my Benefit Recital has already been rescheduled for April. I did not sing for 10 days or talk for 4 in preparation of healing my vocal chords. (I know, kind of unbelievable that I would have that kind of self-control since I love to talk so much.) Through the time waiting to get my voice back, I felt trapped and started to think of my past and my future.
I recalled my past summer as a counselor at Eagle Lake Camps and how much I miss my fellow counselors and campers who made such an imprint on my life. I miss the tie-die Tuesdays, the war paint in capture the flag, being secret agents to get to Bible Study, the long days, the loving host mom, Mary Ellen in Ogden, and going down the water slide and breaking our Director’s nose. I miss the good and the hard times. I miss my Red Rumble family and I want the summer to happen all over again. But most of all, I miss talking with my girl campers about life. One girl has a Dads who is serving overseas and another has a Dad who is dying of ALS. I realized how strong their faiths were. I miss talking with my campers about how we are more than conquerors though Him who loved us (ROMANS 8:37). But most of all I miss seeing all the ways God moved at camp, in my life, in the campers’ lives, in the big and the small. And that is when I realize my camp story doesn’t end. Yes, I had an amazing time, but if it truly is all about God, then so is everything else.
The service on the World Race next year is all about building up God’s kingdom and doing it for His glory. After the race, no matter what I do or where I go, it is all about building up the kingdom and seeing God move. I can dream about the future but I cannot get stuck there because the future has enough to worry about. (Matt 6) I am to be focused on the here and now.
God has given me a gift that I am so grateful for. Let me use it to glorify him. Let me not get discouraged when I get sick, but rest and trust that I will get better. Whatever happens, let it be for the betterment of His kingdom. In the scheme of things, yes, I would love to give my best performances for everyone who comes to my recital, but at the end of the day, God already knows my best.
