God's been good

Lorrie's been playing this song a lot lately . .

Lately I've been looking back, along this winding road
To the old familiar markers of the mercies I have known
I know it may sound simple but it's more than a cliche
There's no better way to tell you, than to say

God's been good in my life
I feel blessed beyond my wildest dreams when I go to sleep each night
And though I've had my share of hard times, I wouldn't change them if I could
'Cause through it all, God's been good

Times replay and I can see that I've cried some bitter tears
But I felt His arms around me, as I faced my greatest fears
You see I've had more gains than losses and I've known more joy than hurt
As His grace rolled down upon me undeserved

God's been good in my life
I feel blessed beyond my wildest dreams when I go to sleep each night
And though I've had my share of hard times, I wouldn't change them if I could
'Cause through it all, God's been good

For God has been my Father, my Savior and my Friend
His love was my beginning, and His love will be my end
I could spend forever trying to tell you everything He is
But the best that I can say it is this

God's been good in my life
I feel blessed beyond my wildest dreams when I go to sleep each night
And though I've had my share of hard times, I wouldn't change them if I could
'Cause through it all, God's been good

perspectives

Do you ever go through times where you just feel like being selfish? A visit to Patten Towers today brought my selfishness into perspective.

As Jackie, Lorrie, and I went up the elevator, the fire alarm starting going off. I have never been in the elevator before when the fire alarm went off, and it was kind of an frightening experience, to say the least! We were at the M floor with the doors open when the elevator started buzzing, and the doors shutting! We pushed them back open and ran down the stairs to the lobby. Getting stuck in the elevator was not on our list for the day. As we waited for the fire department to come, we saw a man we recognized from various activities with Patten. His name is Merle. As we talked with him about going on the River Cruise (which he thoroughly enjoyed) he said, "Hey, wanna see something beautiful?" He was reaching into his wallet, and took out a picture of two little girls. "Who are they?" Lorrie asked. "They're my daughters, replied Merle, "But I can't see them. My wife and I are divorced and I don't get to see them." Tears began to form in my eyes. He started talking about them. About their personalties. What they like. And he carries them with him everywhere in his wallet. Meanwhile, the fire department had gotten there and it was safe to go upstairs again. Merle said goodbye as he headed off to go up the elevator. Oh how much more Jesus loves us than Merle loves his daughters! That put things into perspective.
We boarded the elevator again. Our destination: Michael on the seventh floor. When Jackie and I were at the Zoo with Patten last Sunday, we talked with Michael for a while. He was pretty hyped up, but he calmed down after talking to us. Jackie said that we'd visit with him on Sabbath. I asked him, "What's your favorite food?" He looked at me apprehensively. "Why...?" "Because maybe we can bring it to you!" I responded. "Well...chicken teriyaki," he said matter of factly.

So armed with chicken teriyaki from China Kitchen, we rang Michael's doorbell. He came to the door and looked at us. "Hi Michael!" we all chorused. The first thing he noticed was the food. "What's that?" he asked, suspiciously eying the bag Jackie was holding. "Chicken teriyaki!" A huge grin spread across his face. "I didn't think you guys were gonna come!" He kept saying it over and over. His face was beaming. He invited us in. We stepped into a large room with a dilapidated couch, a couple mattresses on the floor, and a TV. He sat down on his bed and chomped down on the egg roll. We visited a few minutes and then left for the eleventh floor to visit Sally. A few dollars spent on chicken teriyaki. A few minutes of visiting. A few hugs. That's all it took to make Michael's day--and it was so worth it to see the look on his face. Perspectives.
We rang the bell on Sally's door. "Who is it?" the raspy voice croaked from inside. "It's us! We're back!" The smile on Sally's face didn't look as bright. She was in more pain than usual.

At the beginning of this year, we didn't know if Sally wanted to continue Bible studies, or if she just wanted us to visit with her. Then, a few weeks ago she came out with this, "I keep waiting so long after I talk, because I'm waiting for you to preach at me again!" Well, I guess that cleared that up. We asked her if there was anything in particular she wanted to study. "Well, I keep trying to read the book of Revelations, but I don't understand it." The light bulb went off. Of course she wanted to study Revelation. Last year she mentioned to us several times that she was "reading Revelations, but I don't understand." So yesterday we had our first exciting study on the book of Revelation. I know the Holy Spirit was there to help her understand. She put her marker in her large print Bible for Revelation 2. "So I can be ready next time when you come."

Perspectives.

Standing Tall

How many of you were blessed by SEYC this past weekend? I'm so thankful to be ReGenerated! Last night I made a commitment to stand up for Jesus. I've been on the Mason-Dixon line. When I was little I asked my mom why Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego didn't just pretend to "tie their shoes" when the music played and they were supposed to bow down. I always struggled with being different in public school--Why don't you go to dances? Eww, what are you eating? Why can't you do stuff on Saturday? And then I dreaded graduating here and once again going out in the world--to be different. I know, Jesus was different, but what if I didn't want to be different like him? It didn't help me to know that Jesus was spit upon so I shouldn't mind being spit upon. It didn't make it any easier to be mocked and made fun of. Then Ivor Myers spoke about looking at the face of Jesus. Jesus beheld the face of God every single day and was bruised for it. Would I miss out on Heaven for something? Would I miss out for blending in with the world? Is that worth it? Am I willing to obey the Word, even if it causes me to die? I need to stop looking at my tiny wounds and look at His wounds to be healed! The glory of God is to be willing to be spit on, marred, and to take on the character of God. When that glory shines in our faces, we won't be ashamed to be different. It's not about self, it's about God. Wow. Then last night I realized that I was on the Mason-Dixon line. I was wearing both blue and gray in order to fit in with either side. Around my Christian friends it's easy to wear all blue. I was one who would probably pretend to tie my shoes, or wear a little gray to blend in with the world. I want to be like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego to stand up for Christ even if everyone around me isn't.

Jesus, I My Cross Have Taken, 325

Jesus, I my cross have taken,
All to leave and follow Thee;
All things else I have forsaken;
Thou from hence my all shalt be.
Perish every fond ambition,
All I've sought, or hoped, or known;
Yet how rich is my condition,
While I prove the Lord my own.

Let the world despise and leave me--
They have left my Savior, too;
Human hearts and looks deceive me--
Thou art faithful,
Thou art true.
O, 'tis not in grief to harm me,
While Thy love is left to me;
O, 'twere not in joy to charm me,
If that love be hid from me.

Soul, then know thy full salvation:
Rise o'er sin, and fear, and care;
Joy to find in every station
Something still to do or bear.
Think what Spirit dwells with-in thee;
Think what Father's smiles are thine;
Think that Jesus died to win thee;
Child of Heaven, canst thou repine?

Haste thee on from grace to glory,
Armed by faith and winged by prayer;
Heaven's eternal day's before thee;
God's own hand shall guide thee there.
Soon shall close thy earthly mission,
Soon shall pass thy pilgrim days;
Hope shall change to glad fruition,
Faith to sight, and prayer to praise.

-Henry F. Lyte

Lately for devotions I’ve been reading about the children of Israel and their wanderings in the desert. I love studying it because I find so many parallels between their lives and my life. As I was reading along in Patriarchs and Prophets yesterday, I came across an extremely powerful paragraph. The children of Israel have almost completed their 40 years of wandering. They are ready to go into Canaan. First they must overcome some obstacles. Here’s what she says: “The Hebrews now remembered how once before, when their forces had gone to battle, they had been routed, and thousands slain. But they had then gone in direct opposition to the command of God. They had gone out without Moses, God’s appointed leader, without the cloudy pillar, the symbol of the divine presence, and without the ark. But now Moses was with them, strengthening their hearts with words of hope and faith; the Son of God, enshrined in the cloudy pillar, led the way; and the sacred ark accompanied the host. This experience has a lesson for us.”

Here’s the amazing part.

“The mighty God of Israel is our God. In Him we may trust, and if we obey His requirements He will work for us in as signal a manner as He did for His ancient people. Everyone who seeks to follow the path of duty will at times be assailed by doubt and unbelief. The way will sometimes be so barred by obstacles, apparently insurmountable, as to dishearten those who will yield to discouragement; but God is saying to such, Go forward. Do your duty at any cost. The difficulties that seem so formidable, that fill your soul with dread, will vanish as you move forward in the path of obedience, humbly trusting God.”

How often I forget that He is our God--the God who turned the water into blood and parted the Red Sea. With God on our side, I have nothing to fear.

changes (title stolen from jackie)

I don't like change. Different things. Different people. Old things gone. Old people gone. New things. They all make me uncomfortable! It seems like moving on means that I have to forget the past--or the good times of the past are blurred because of the tumultuous, changing present. For instance, I had a really good friend not come back to school this past year. It seemed like in order to accept the change and move on, I had to forget the past. I'd have to forget how things used to be. Let go. The connection to the person would be different. This past week a really good friend left camp. Another change.

In a changing world, however, there's one thing that doesn't change.

For I am the LORD, I change not... Malachi 3:6

Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever. Hebrews 13:8

ode to kitties

Alas, I am leaving my dear kitties for the summer.

Such a look of concentration

The old timer--Kitty

Rosie

Patches in my flute case

Patches

Rosie in the garden

high notes

I just need to do a little bit of venting. One thing that annoys me is when editors put stuff up 8va. I'm practicing a piece of music that has 8vas all over the place. It's driving me up the wall! It's on a computer...it's very simple to transpose things up an octave rather than write 8va. I see the point of it if it were hand written, ledger lines are annoying to hand write. Music done on a computer, however, has no excuse. Flute players love to read ledger lines, and if composers are assuming that flute players can play high Cs, then they ought to assume that flute players can read high Cs. It's especially annoying irksome when the musical line is climbing upward, only to have the physical shape of the phrase chopped in half because it jumps down the octave with an 8va. Well, at least I don't have any horn friends who read this. :) In other news, I have just discovered iGoogle, and am having a blast!

Los Angeles Philharmonic

Auditions

Esa-Pekka Salonen, Music Director announces auditions for:

Principal Bassoon

Dates: April 20-25, 2008
Résumé deadline: February 29, 2008

Principal Flute

Dates: May 17-20, 2008
Résumé deadline: March 14, 2008

Whoops, guess I missed out on that one.

universtiy maneuvers

How hard is it for university websites to post audition information in an easy to find spot? Apparently they like to narrow the search for prospective students already by seeing how desperate they are to find audition requirements.

learning from the past

So today i read the book "Joseph" by Terri Fivash. (I recommend it!) I have learned a very important lesson: Joseph stayed true to his God in a land of heathens. He didn't need to understand. He just needed to obey.

happy 19th birthday, kitty!

Today The Kitty turned 19 in human years!

Blackstir always gets priority at the food dish.

a major change

well...in case you've noticed how all smiles seem to have been nonexistent from my face lately...it's because I've had somewhat of a direction in life crisis. I had pretty much decided the fact that I was graduating very soon and doing something that I didn't want to do was filling me with an incredible feeling of dread (dread--great agitation and anxiety caused by the expectation or the realization of danger). After a sequence of events, much prayer, an email to Mrs. Minner, some chats with Dr. Ball, and a wonderful talk with my esteemed, wonderful, and amazing flute teacher...I have changed my major to nursing. No more awful classes in Summerour! ha, just kidding...about the nursing part that is. Yes, I have joined the ranks of those who have ditched music ed. I am becoming a flute performance major. Now instead of tiring my embouchure out by practicing my saxophone, hurrying to get hours of observing in which I have terribly procrastinated on, attending classes in Summerour, abhorring band because that's what I was going to have to face someday... I can practice Karg-Elert etudes, the circle of doom, finger drills, seamless and spinning vibrato between notes, wicked good driving air, perfect little tapers --my wonderful and dear flute, with which I have recently fallen in love. I can hear it now! what are you going to do? Go to grad school, of course! AHH how much fun! To live, breathe, and experience music. Am I scared about going back to public school? About leaving our little Adventist utopia? Yes. But I try and remember...

"Anywhere with Jesus I can safely go,
Anywhere He leads me in this world below;
Anywhere without Him dearest joys would fade;
Anywhere with Jesus I am not afraid."

grateful

Thanks...to you who...

Took care of me on orchestra tour. Who asked me how I was doing--even if I just grunted or scowled. Who were compassionate. Who hugged me and didn't care that I was sick. Who bent over to listen to what I had to say because it hurt to talk. Who rubbed my back. Who sang me lullabies at night. Who walked around with me in Brussels (even though I wasn't very much fun), dropped me off at the library, and then came back for me when it closed. Who gave me food. Who walked all around Sneek looking for soup. Who sat with me when I didn't talk. Who piled coats on top of me on the bus when I had a fever. Who laid down on the floor to talk to me when I had said fever. Who played my orchestra part when I dropped out. Who lent me Euros. Who told me stories of violin and cello teachers on the bus. Who called me yesterday and said "don't even think about coming to work tonight!" Who missed two classes to take me to the doctor.

I feel so blessed to have such wonderful friends. Thank you! I am so appreciative.


And the King will answer and say to them, "Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me." Matthew 25:40

the power of love

"It is because selfishness exists in our hearts that temptation has power over us. But when we behold the great love of God, selfishness appears to us in its hideous and repulsive character, and we desire to have it expelled from the soul. As the Holy Spirit glorifies Christ, our hearts are softened and subdued, the temptation loses its power, and the grace of Christ transforms the character."

Thoughts from the Mount of Blessing, p. 118

So it must be that because selfishness hasn't been completely excluded from our lives we are given into temptation. We haven't totally given ourselves to God. What a formidable thought.

Lord, help me to unselfishly look to you.

dreams for Sally

Lorrie and I came back from the pops concert to prepare for a Bible study on salvation we were team teaching to Sally the next day. It was late. We were tired. We wrote an outline for ourselves, picking out key verses and tried to come up with examples and analogies that Sally would understand. One of our verses was Romans 2:8, "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God." We tried to think of a story where we had received grace. It shouldn't be that hard, right? We were drawing blanks. Lorrie suggested that we move on, and maybe think of a story in the morning when our minds were fresher. After we finished our outline, I took Lorrie home, and went to bed. I had a most interesting dream...

Lorrie, Christy, and I were driving down the highway from North River church when a white car abruptly cut in front of us (which actually did happen yesterday). Somehow, it became the next day. Lorrie and I were driving somewhere in front of Southern. I saw blue lights in my rear view mirror. Oh no...I pulled over. I definitely wasn't speeding. The officer who pulled me over was young :). He was giving me a ticket for yesterday on the highway. Apparently he was going to pull over the white car who cut me off, but instead decided to pull me over (the next day). I was going 10 miles over the speed limit. (I would just like to interject here that I hate how the drivers here think the speed limit on 75 is like 70.) I tried to talk him out of a ticket. "But officer...I was only going 65, and everyone was passing me!" This did nothing. I began to dread calling my parents to tell them I had gotten a ticket. I remembered my mom's gentle reminder when I left NY that tickets make insurance go way up. My parents have never gotten a ticket. Here I was breaking the record at 21 getting my first ticket. I begged some more with the officer. It was later in the day now, and we ended up in his police car. We were all sitting in the front seat--I was in the middle and Lorrie was in the passenger seat. I tried one more time. I told him "You have give me a break! You see, we're doing a Bible study tomorrow, and we need an example of grace. If you let me off the hook with no ticket, I can use this experience as an example!"

I never found out if he bestowed grace upon me or not. Thomson, Joel, Lorrie, and I went today to give Sally her Bible study at Patten towers. We informed Thomson and Joel that one of them had to tell a story where they received something undeserving--a grace story. Sally's room--the eleventh floor. I rang the doorbell and knocked. Silence. Thomson knocked harder. Finally we hear Sally croak, "Hold on!" She gets closer. "Who is it?" "It's us, Sally!" "Oh! You can't come in today! I'm sick. I have a temperature of 103. I don't want you guys to get sick." Her normally hoarse voice sounded worse. My heart sank. You see, when we came to study the Bible with Sally last week, she wasn't too sure about it. We were hoping that this week would be better. I asked her if she needed anything. No. I told her we'd come back next week. Pray for Sally...that she gets better, that she yields to God's Spirit, and that she is strong against Satan's attacks.

a note job

I am in orchestration and arranging with Dr. Ashton. We had this assignment that was described as the following:

"Copy parts for the 1st and 2d oboes and the 2d clarinet from Haydn's Symphony No. 104 in D Major. Place each instrument on a separate staff on the same page. For the last eight measures, give the 2d oboe a performance cue of the viola line (watch the clef) and provide a performance cue of the 1st oboe part for the last 8 measures in the clarinet."

Ok. What does that sound like to you? I assumed it was in score form, since that is what we had done the day before, and it said "on the same page." So that night I began to work on it--for two hours, completing a whole 5 measures out of 15. I labored on it painstakingly--drawing all lines and stems with rulers. Lining up all notes vertically with my ruler. My pink pearl eraser was my trusty side-kick the whole way. (It has undoubtedly lost a little weight through the journey.) Then I got to the "cues" part. This seemed odd to me. Why would the book want me to write cues in for a score? Then I read "copy parts." Oh no! Could it be that I was supposed to extract separate parts for each instrument? (Who would want a score of 2 oboes, 2nd clarinet, and viola cues anyway?) I immediately stopped what I was doing. I would ask Dr. Ashton later. I checked his office multiple times, but alas he was in absentia. I waited until after orchestra to ask him. Yes, I was supposed to have extracted the parts and made them separate. The book told us "on the same page" so we could save paper. Wasn't that nice of them? "Well...I already started doing it in score. I've been working on it for two hours...do you think I could do surgery on it?" He said, "Ok, this time, and if it's neat." Yes. I didn't have to start over.

So tonight I listened to Mahler 1 (By the way, I adore how Claudio Abbado and the Beliner Philharmoniker start the 2nd mvt. slower and then do an accelerando.) whilst doing the cutting. It started thunder storming.

^My beautiful score. (Sorry it's a fuzzy pic)

^I don't want to cut up my beautiful work!

^After I cut the Oboe I part off the top.

^The Oboe I part, surgery complete. Cutting and pasting is much easier on a computer.


^The Oboe II part, complete with Viola cues.


^I just finished. I'm going to bed! Being a surgeon is stressful.

geocaching

Coming soon...geocaching with the Reynolds