When God Moves

This is the story of a recent answer to faithful prayers: (I changed the names for their privacy)

It was a lonely walk those first few months. My friend and I began to pray for our school and each week as we talked to people and shared what was on our hearts we became more discouaged that God was not moving. Every week we were there and every week no one else came. We finally accepted that, for now at least, it was in God’s plan for it to be just us. We took many steps of faith that semester. Katy stood in front of the orchestra and shared the testimony of God’s power on her mission trip to Juarez, Mexico. I prayed for a friend that God would heal her tendinitis. We saw no one come to Christ, and we saw no one healed. It was a lonely walk.

The more time we spent together the better Katy and I got to know each other. Each week we would share what God was doing on our hearts and pray for and encourage each other. Then we would finish our time by lifting up the music school. We prayed for friends, teachers, and recital halls and just invited the Holy Spirit to be there in our music. We asked that our practice would be worship as well as our performances and we prayed that God would put it on the hearts of the people in the music school to want to know Him and worship Him with their music. That semester we also took an orchestra trip to San Antonio. On the bus trips Katy and I got to talk to several people about the reality of spiritual warfare and the reality of God’s presence. Ben asked if we could say, without a doubt, that God exists. We had sat in His sweet presence only that morning and of course we told Ben yes, there is no room for doubt when He speaks to your heart. The semester came to a close and Katy and I said goodbye for the summer. God had used her to help me mature in Him and I was encouraged in my personal walk, but nothing in the music school had changed. It seemed we were the only ones who could see and everyone else was blind, even the believers.

When this semester began we invited everyone we could think of to come pray with us on Sunday nights. Two more were added to our number: Margaret and Sarah. Our prayer times have been a blessing. The first week of September I worked at family camp where I got to spend time with my best friend Courtney (real name, haha) and her new guy friend. We had so much fun together and I learned through both of their wisdom how to be content with where God has me. The taught me to walk in His peace. Two weeks later I went to a college retreat where we studied Colossians. I learned that my future was on the "throne" of my life. That my main focus was what would happen after I graduated and all the exciting things I could do. I thought about that most of the time, instead of renewing my mind in Christ. That week I learned that Jesus died for my sin. There was a sign above His head listing His crimes and on that sign was everything that I have ever done and ever will do. I finally felt the revelation in my heart. It was the first time my heart was ever broken because of my sin. It felt like my sin was finally a reality.

Next God taught me to live by faith. He taught me that I need to love others with all that I have, and only that can take the awkwardness and newness of friendships away, because then the focus is not on myself. About a month into the semester I began to feel tension and tingling in both of my arms and hands. I dealt with it like I would a sore muscle, just a part of life. After a week had gone by and the pain was getting worse, I started to be afraid. My friend Anna had just played for the first time after giving up the violin for a year because she inured her arms. It seemed there was a monster lurking in the music school and it had finally grabbed a hold of me. I wondered if I would lose the thing I held the most dear – my ability to play the violin. The week of October third I realized that everything God had taught me in rapid succession that semester had been leading up to the trial. He had spent countless hours preparing my heart for what was to come so that I would be ready to accept what He had to teach me. That same week I learned that life is a wilderness journey and that when God takes us into the wilderness it is so He can "hit our cup" and reveal what has been inside of us all along. The same time this was happening God called me to quit my job at Starbucks. I struggled with it for about a week and He confirmed it in so many ways. The main thing He said during that week was to trust Him for my financial provision. The day after I quit I got a check in the mail for four hundred dollars! This was from a scholarship that I had not received. That day I was so excited that I wanted to go to work and tell someone. I was tired though, so I started to go to bed, but God told me clearly that I needed to go to work. I went reluctantly and when I got there I met a friend who ended up praying for me and I also prayed for her. She told me "It’s really funny, but I was thinking about going to bed and I felt like God told me to come here tonight." God is so faithful!

About a week after I started having pain I saw a doctor and he asked me to take a break, so for the next two weeks I hardly played at all. That was the week I quit work. I came back from my break only recovered enough to make it day by day. The pain was still there, and with opera rehearsals for three hours at a time it only got worse. During those first two weeks I experienced such sweetness of God’s presence. After that, I was ready to play again so I decided I was finished with this character building. I told Him that was enough and that I wanted my arms back. "I’m not finished," He said. He revealed to my heart that I loved Him, but I did not trust Him. That was a hard thing to learn. The stress mounted as the concerto competition loomed nearer and I began to gradually practice more and more. My playing time was still significantly limited and I found that the more insignificant I became the more I accomplished for God’s glory. God showed me what a blessing it is to play the violin and how I need to thank Him for it every day.

A few weeks ago I played the first movement of my concerto (Mendelssohn violin concerto in E minor) in studio class and the main comment I got was that the musicality was not communicating. "I can see that you have this passion inside," one of my friends said, "but you're not letting it out." I realized that I was afraid to expose my heart to an audience and I had not been willing to really put myself into my performances. I saw that before Jesus could reveal himself through my music I had to open up and allow people to see my sinful, ugly heart. I need to reflect His image instead of perfecting my own. The last opera performance was last Sunday, the Sunday before the competition. That day my arms were hurting a lot and I began to cry as I asked God why he would allow this to continue when something so important approached.
The night of the competition I was waiting to warm up with my accompanist and I met Laura, another violinist also in the competition, in the hallway. We started to talk about stuff and she shared that she felt everything would be okay because God had given her a revelation last Saturday that she was to play unto the Lord. That same day she got a card in the mail that said, "Make a joyful noise unto the Lord." We both went to warm up and while I played I felt the Holy Spirit so strongly that I almost cried. When I played my concerto in the preliminaries that Wednesday night, November 8, I felt so covered and protected. I was nervous, of course, but God kept speaking to me. Just little things that would help me stay focused, and the voice was so gentle and quiet. Before the end of the first movement I was sweating like crazy and I never sweat when I perform. I walked off the stage feeling like I had poured myself out as a drink offering. I could barely stand up and I was soaking with sweat. I have never put myself into a performance like that before. I realized about ten minutes later that there was no pain in my arms or hands. They were not tense at all. Until that night I had never played all three movements of my concerto without stopping because it hurt too much. God had not only annointed my music, he had healed my arms! The day before God had given me a verse to think about. Keeping in mind that my time of trial had been a wilderness, Isaiah 51:3 says, "Indeed, the Lord will comfort Zion. He will comfort all her waste places, and her wilderness He will make like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the Lord. Joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and the sound of a melody."

I found out later that night that Laura had experienced the same thing. She also was moved to tears while she was warming up with her pianist, and she felt God’s presence and heard His voice while she played in the competition. She kept telling me I had something special going on and I kept telling her it was all Jesus. I am so thankful He chose to let me be a part of this giant move of His spirit! We prayed that music would be worship, and he gave us the annointing of His Spirit. GOD ANSWERED OUR PRAYERS. Saturday of the same week as the preliminaries, Laura played the final round. Katy and I sat in awe as she played the Sibelius violin concerto. There were tears streaming down our faces and sniffles from Katy as she tried to keep the contest judges from hearing her cry. We all thanked Jesus for his move in our music school. "Keep speaking to us," Laura said, "we’re still listening."

The Saturday of the final round of the competiton was yesterday. We started praying for these tings last January. It was a long, lonely journey, but we have met a faithful God who answeres prayer. I didn't make it to the final round, but I learned how to play for Jesus. Laura didn't win the competition (against 7 other musicians), but she learned how to play for Jesus. We are both very blesed. Four days later there is still no pain in my arms.