Heart of Worship is the word I got for my team this month in Jordan. And it’s been humbling.
I have always prided myself on my ability to play violin. It hasn’t always been easy. It’s been stretching going through auditions and chair tests and playing solos in school and in orchestra to a new challenge of playing violin in a worship team. When I first moved to Los Angeles, I hadn’t played my violin for 6 years. I had a schedule conflict my senior year of high school. I decided I wasn’t going to pursue music professionally and that I should focus on school. So, I dropped orchestra. It wasn’t an easy decision as I was always the first stand first violin and frequently concertmistress.
So after I dropped orchestra,I didn’t play it anymore. So it stayed in a closet after my junior year, sort of forgotten and sometimes I would nostalgically play it here and there but otherwise it stayed untouched. In quite horrible conditions I might add, it was in a hot closet upstairs in a room without a/c in Texas for many years. I shudder and thank God that nothing bad happened to it.
Well…in 2013 I moved to Los Angeles and started playing violin again – I had a friend who wanted to record some pop songs with strings and I convinced him that he needed to get real strings and not just a string library from some computer program. So I basically volunteered myself and my violin was back home in TX. So, we first started with a $20 a month violin rental from Guitar Center, (which was not so amazing but for $20 worth it) and then rented out a better violin from a dedicated violin shop, to finally that thanksgiving, I flew back home and brought the violin back…and from there I continued with playing it!
I started playing at my church – Reality LA, which was completely nerve wrecking because it’s a mega church – each service had about 1000 people and there were 3 services and since it was in the heart of Hollywood, most of the worship team were professional musicians…Talk about feeling intimidated!
I then played at Collective church (Reality LA church plant that I was part of for alf a year) as well as Epicentre West LA (which became my home church the last year and a half). I also played at my roommate’s wedding, a benefit concert for another roommate and played three years at my Santa Monica Community College Orchestra, including our Nutcracker performance (which cost $45 a ticket per attendee!).
It was really hard to play at first. I was rusty from playing and I had no experience playing with a band. It’s a completely different experience – the vocals are the melody and electric guitar is generally the instrumental melody and you get really loud drums that can be overpowering. But I have grown a lot in that and now have confidence in my playing. Coming in this race, I knew I played violin well and that I was able to play. However, I didn’t have any expectation that I would. I didn’t bring my violin because I didn’t want to have to worry about how it would travel, if it would break or go out of tune or losing it. I also thought that since the violin is more of a harmony instrument in a worship team, it wasn’t essential.
Well, I’m glad other people have been praying for me to have a violin because I have played it a handful of times- and I’m humbled by it.
I didn’t play in France. My first time playing was in Mijas, Spain. I was fortunate enough to borrow another squad’s violin. She studied violin in college and had played for many years and her violin was good and sounded nice. I played one time during worship night with both our squads and it was so beautiful. I did have an itch to play and loved to worship God with my skill. It was also validating – our coach said that when I played, it was like playing the strings of God’s heart. Wow. Super encouraging!
A month passed, and no violin in Morocco, but in Cyprus – I was able to play a violin during Sunday night service at Glory House church. It was really amazing. But going in, I was skeptical – I knew I could play well but I also knew the sound quality would be different as this person’s violin was a student beginner violin and not as good as the one I had or the one in Mijas.
Then, the last two days – I got really humbled. We arrived in Jordan and I got my hands on a violin. Yay! However, this violin was in one of the worst conditions I’ve seen. Half the bow hair is missing and what is left is old and discolored. The violin strings are strung on the wrong pegs and it cannot stay in tune. I tune it and it is the right pitch for about half a second before it changes note again. Finally, there is no shoulder rest, and I’ve been using a kitchen sponge as one.
When I saw the condition of the violin, I became very critical. I wanted to restring it, I almost didn’t want to play it. And when I finally did – it sounded okay, but not amazing. I played in different positions and didn’t play open strings, but I didn’t feel the confidence and the validation I normally feel when I play well.
I was thinking about this reaction and realized that God doesn’t care about the music itself, but the heart. And that he calls us to make a Joyful noise (hehe not necessarily “music”). And that a lot of what I was thinking was related to my identity and my own desire to do things right and to sound good – which is all good, and nice, but not always just a necessity. I am so blessed to have an instrument accessible to me that I know how to play. I am so blessed that my team members are encouraging me and that the owner of the violin is letting me play and that I have a space to play it and people to worship together with.
I’m so thankful that God has slowly brought me through this process – of first playing a violin that wasn’t my own but still beautiful, to a violin that was fine (all parts there), to one that is of questionable quality but God’s glory still shines.
