The Orchestra

Think of God as a conductor, and all his people as the orchestra. All the instruments are needed for the music to sound right. So whether it's an intricate saxophone solo, or somebody dinging a cowbell in the back, if they're both orchestrated by God, then both are equally important to His music. And who are we to question our Conductor? It may be hard for the cowbell player to look at the saxophone soloist and think "we are equally important," but if that's what the Conductor needs, then that's all that matters.

I guess I am having a little identity crisis these days. I've written before about how I identified myself as a good student/hard worker for 20 years, and now I'm not only thrown into life without school, but also a life using very little of what I learned in school. It makes me go "what am I doing, again?" on the daily. Obviously I'm learning to be a mother and a homemaker, but my brain keeps going "maybe I'm supposed to do this...or that...or that...etc." I need to learn to sit back and trust that I will be led. God always shows up, and He's always guided me well. So in this time of "who am I/what am I doing, again?" I need to sit back and stop trying to guess what God wants me to do next and just listen.

It's like I'm the cowbell dinger in the orchestra, and I keep trying to have a cowbell solo, and God is all "whoa there Kath, I do NOT need more cowbell right now." I need to get out of my own way, and trust. Maybe there will come a day when our Conductor points to me, smiles, and says "I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell!" But until then, I need to relax and just focus on what God is asking me to do and not evaluate it based on what He's asking everyone else to do.

One of my all-time faves...

There is no music in a rest, but there is the making of music in it. In our whole life-melody the music is broken off here and there by "rests," and we foolishly think we have come to the end of the tune. God sends a time of forced leisure, sickness, disappointed plans, frustrated efforts, and makes a sudden pause in the choral hymn of our lives; and we lament that our voices must be silent, and our part missing in the music which ever goes up to the ear of the Creator. How does the musician read the "rest"? See him beat the time with unvarying count, and catch up the next note true and steady, as if no breaking place had come between.

Not without design does God write the music of our lives. Be it ours to learn the tune, and not be dismayed at the "rests." They are not to be slurred over, not to be omitted, not to destroy the melody, not to change the keynote. If we look up, God Himself will beat the time for us. With the eye on Him, we shall strike the next note full and clear. If we sadly say to ourselves, "there is no music in a 'rest,'" let us not forget "there is the making of music in it."

-Ruskin