Handel's 24 days. "Messiah's" generations...

Growing up in a musical family had its pluses and minuses.  Getting up at 4:30AM to practice the piano was definitely a minus.  Exposure to fabulous music was definitely a plus...though I didn't appreciate it until I was about 35 years old...okay...30.

Each Christmas meant a Messiah performance...or two.  It was the longest hour of my life...every year.  You can't imagine my excitement the time we got to sit through a performance of the ENTIRE Messiah.  Oh, you didn't know?  The songs performed at Christmas are only a PORTION of the whole work...Part 1 of 3 Parts.  Yep.  There's more.  Like 2 hours worth more...don't forget to pack a lunch!

The amazing thing about this oratorio (musical term for this type of large, typically sacred, composition) is that Handel composed the entire work in 24 days.  Vocal parts, instrumental parts, everything...24 DAYS!!  It is said that Handel neither ate or drank much at all in those 24 days.  He just wrote...and wrote...and wrote...and Messiah was conceived, born and delivered...and generation after generation has been blessed by its musical beauty and encouraged by the text which is entirely drawn from Scripture.

I've often wondered what the experience of writing Messiah must have been like for Handel.  For him to have written the whole work in 24 days, the music had to literally pour out of him.  I wonder if he longed to be able to write faster.  Oh, yes.  One little detail I failed to mention.  Handel wrote Messiah during the summer of 1741.  That means Handel wrote every note, every dynamic marking, every word by hand...with a quill and ink.  No keyboard hooked up to a computer with software that automatically scores everything played on the keyboard.  By hand...24 days...every note...every voice part and instrument...if that doesn't define "inspired", I don't know what does!

Anyway...back to Handel in a room with little food or drink furiously writing sixteenth notes as fast as he can, or lovingly and sensitively writing the soaring melody for the text, "I know that my Redeemer liveth..."  What were those 24 days like for Handel?  I have wept while listening...have desired to shout for joy while listening...have felt virtually transported to the third heaven while listening.  I cannot imagine what Handel must have felt to have this glorious music pouring from his heart onto paper.  There is a story that is told about the Hallelujah chorus that Handel's assistant walked in to the room after shouting to him for several minutes with no response.  The assistant reportedly found Handel in tears, and when the assistant asked Handel what was wrong, Handel held up the score and said, "I thought I saw the face of God."

This past Sunday my sweet husband, our youngest son and I traveled to Texas to hear Messiah performed by my parents' church choir along with some additional community singers who joined them.  My mother played the organ, my father sang the tenor solos, and my brother was the conductor.  It was fabulous!  ...and I sat in the audience amazed, once again, by the magnitude of the work...but, even more so by the magnificence of the One about whom it was written.  His name is Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.

An added treat was that my Aunt Val came to the performance, as well.  She is a woman for whom I have utmost admiration and respect.  She is a living definition of "Biblical womanhood".  Her husband, my Uncle Buddy, died several years ago...and while Aunt Val has had many opportunities to be tempted to bitterness, anger and resentment, she has placed her trust and hope in God and believed in His goodness and His steadfast love towards Uncle Buddy and herself.

As I sat by Aunt Val on Sunday listening to the choir singing Messiah, I thought of Uncle Buddy who I'm 100% sure is enthusiastically singing in the heavenly choir.  I wondered what it must be like to be offering perfect praise to Jesus...to desire nothing else but to glorify and worship Him...and to know that eternity will not be long enough to mine the depths or scale the heights of His glory.  Perhaps Handel was given a glimpse...

Thank you, Lindale United Methodist Church, for sharing your beautiful rendition of Messiah.  Thank you, Handel for persevering those 24 days.  Thank you, God, for creating within us the longing to worship You; and for sending Your Son, Jesus, the Messiah through whom You saved me, redeemed me and raised me to eternal life. "Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever!  Amen!"  (Revelation 7:12)

My super talented father singing the tenor solos in Sunday's Messiah performance.

What a blessing to hear him sing!

My brother, Trey, conducting the choir.  My mom is playing the organ.

It's at times like this that the distance between Tennessee and Texas makes me a little heartsick...

but, oh so thankful to have been in the audience!!

John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt. La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la...

Tuesday evening we (my hubby and I) met our son and his wife (Jake and Loren), and our youngest son, Drew, at The Chop House for dinner.  We celebrated Jake's completion of all the requirements for the Bachelor of Science degree at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.  He decided to skip the whole "walking" thing and just relish the fact that he was done by enjoying a nice medium-rare rib-eye steak. 

I typically get all emotional at times like this...my eyes become geysers much like Old Faithful.  It can be pretty embarrassing...there's no claiming, "Oh! I got something in my eye!" and believe that anyone is going to buy it.  However, I only had one slight "moment" and it occurred during our drive to the restaurant.  We made the mistake of talking about "lambies" (lambskins that Jake and Drew slept on when they were babies) and that made me think about precious Jake toddling around as an 18-month old with a piece of his lambie (which had disintegrated and fallen apart due to multiple washings and dryings when he had a virus) clutched to his face in one hand and the thumb of his other hand in his mouth.  It's one of my favorite memories of Jake...so sweet...I could've just eaten him with a spoon!!  As I reminisced...my eyes got misty...

Another sweet memory is when my mom taught Jake the song "John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt".  Jake's speaking ability was not quite up to pronouncing all the words in the song...but, he LOVED to shout the "la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la's" at the end!  He would just kind of mutter through the first part of the song and then sing the "la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la's" at the top of his lungs collapsing in a heap of laughter when it was over.  Such sweet, innocent delight and contagious giggles... and I'm misting again...

Now...our precious Jake is married to precious Loren, and is a college graduate.  These are the kinds of accomplishments I used to long, wish, and hope for each of our children.  ...and I worked quite feverishly to "control" their lives to ensure they had at least a chance for the very best.  Even going so far as believing it would be better for them to go to a prestigious private boarding school for 9th - 12th grades because of the doors that would open to them just by having that school's name on their transcripts.  At least that's the motivation I claimed if anyone asked how we could allow our children to leave home when they were only 15 years old.  Truth be told...I was focused on raising our children to be successful, influential, "upper echelon" people...all for MY glory...so that people would be impressed with ME and MY incredible talents in motherhood.  I have cried many more tears over this ugly truth than probably any other sin of which I am guilty. 

PRIDE...it's a horrible thing.  It's a killer that promises life by masking itself with beauty.  It's a liar that promises acclaim by clothing itself with knowledge.  It's a poser that promises satisfaction by masquerading itself as prosperity.  It's the ugliest of idols.  It's the idol of ME.

There is no part of my life left untouched by my pride.  Every decision was made by evaluating the outcome through the "Me" lens.  How would it affect ME?  Would it make ME look good?  Would people like ME more?  Would MY life be made easier?  My pride so controlled me that I essentially became a hostage in a self-constructred prison of fear...a far cry from "the queen of all the lands about" I had dreamed of and worked so hard to become.  It was a painful day when God opened my eyes to my sin and His Son, my Savior. Painful...but, glorious.  For the first time I saw my sin on my Savior and for the first time I felt free from the bondage of myself.  "But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved [me], even when [I] was dead in [my] trespasses, made [me] alive together with Christ - by grace [I] have been saved..."  (Ephesians 2:4-5)

Complete victory will come when I'm in the presence of Jesus...because as John Piper says, I will be totally unaware of myself.  For now God is gracious to give me glimpses of that day, which leads me back to The Chop House and Jake's graduation meal.  I was a humbled and thankful mother that evening, because God saved Jake and placed in him the gift of eternal life.  Jake loves the gospel and is giving his life away to share the gospel with college students on the campus of the University of Tennessee Knoxville.  Jake is thankful to be a college graduate because he will be able to throw his whole heart into ministry... he is storing up treasure in heaven where moth nor rust destroys. 

One of God's most loving gifts to me has been my inability to claim any part of our children's well-being or doing.  I did all I could to conform them to this world...to raise them to be pleasers of men...to set them on the "road to success".  God saved them to be aliens in this world...pleasers of God...and fellow heirs with Jesus Christ.  ...all to the praise of His glory!  So, when we celebrate milestones...and even pebbles...my heart is provoked to praise the One from whom all blessings flow...to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever! (Jude 25) 

 Congratulations, Jake!  We love you and Loren!

La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la.....!

Turkey at Telliquah Falls. Oh, what a foretaste...

Last year (2008) we instituted a Thanksgiving tradition of renting a cabin at Telliquah Falls for days of reconnecting as a family, food, games, food, singing, food, and....did I mention food?  Yes, we eat our fill of smoked turkey breasts (thank you, my sweet husband, for hours spent by the grill...YUM! YUM!), garlic cheese grits (a staple on the Thanksgiving table since I was knee-high to a grasshopper), potato casserole (Drew refuses to come if it's not there...and he's serious!), heavenly hash (my hubby's all-time favorite), about 5 other dishes, and pecan, pumpkin and apple pies...the Thanksgiving meal is quite a spread, but the leftovers are always where it's at!!

Back to last year's Turkey at Telliquah Falls...Peter, our son-in-law, proposed to our daughter on Thanksgiving Day in Hidden Falls cabin. Jump ahead to this year (2009) and when we returned to our beloved Hidden Falls cabin we had not just one son-in-law, but one son-in-law and two daughters-in-law!  Yep...and then there were NINE...all within six short months!!  Little did we know as we closed the door at Hidden Falls in 2008 that we would return in 2009 with such a drastically changed family.  But, as Proverbs 16:9 says, "The heart of a man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps."  God knew that upon our return visit this year that not only Peter would be joining us, but Meggie and Loren, as well... and as with all things God does...it was very good.

Each time I reflect on our time at Hidden Falls this year, I am reduced to a puddle...stirred up to praise God from whom all blessings flow...humbled by God's boundless mercy and amazing grace...drawn in to worship Jesus - whose death on the cross, where He endured the wrath of the Father that I deserved and completely satisfied God's just punishment for my sin, made it all possible.  ...possible for Bethany, Loren, Meggie and me to enjoy sweet time in the kitchen sharing with each other how God had drawn us to Himself.  ...possible for Drew to play his guitar and lead us in joyful singing about God's redeeming love.  ...possible for our family once on the brink of destruction to be restored to the praise of the glory of His grace.  ...possible for each member of our earthly family to be made part of God's eternal family, fellow heirs with Christ. 

Possibly the most encouraging words I heard while at Hidden Falls came from Peter as we were all packing up to leave. My sweetheart said to Peter, "Well, you know what they say, 'All good things must come to an end.'"  To which Peter replied, "That's not true. We just move on to the next thing...but, our joy remains the same."  Great reminder, Peter...that our joy is in Christ not our circumstances!  So, while Turkey at Telliquah Falls is a wonderful and highly anticipated Thanksgiving tradition in the Simmons family..it should only serve to point us to the banquet where food will be inconsequential because we will be eternally satisfied to feast on the presence of Jesus!

Here is our precious family...the whole gang from 2009 Turkey at Telliquah Falls.  The men from the left: Drew, Mike, Josh, Peter and Jake.  The women from the left: myself, Meggie, Bethany and Loren.

As we checked out of Telliquah Falls, we went on and reserved Hidden Falls for 2010 (the Lord willing)...for TEN guests (our first grandchild, Baby Hedger, will be with us...GLORY!!)...but, I might take a couple of extra place settings...just in case. 

    

...and away we go!

...and so it begins.  I rebelled against the blogosphere for as long as I could.  I'm still not a Facebook-er...though I do look at photos and such via my daughter's page...does that make me a Facebook stalker?... nor do I "tweet"...does anyone really care that I switched my toenail polish from Prissy Pink to Drop Dead Red?  ...don't think so.

The prospect of blogging began to intrigue me when I came across a line in a Valley of Vision prayer...that line was "Here a glimpse, there a glory."  As soon as my eyes swept over it and it connected to my brain, I thought, "That would be a great blog name."  I didn't immediately say anything to my sweet hubby, because I didn't want to get his hopes up that I might actually be considering a ticket to cyberspace, as he himself has been a blogger and tweeter for some time now.  It was a big step that I needed to ponder, mull over and roll around in my mind for awhile.

Why would I become a blogger?  Maybe because my mind is going (ARGH!!!!) and it would be a good way to journal.  Do I really have anything to say?  Definitely nothing life-changing or earth-shattering.  Do I really have anything to say that others would find worth reading?  I've learned much from and been encouraged / challenged by other bloggers...perhaps blogging can be a way to "stir up one another to love and good works." (Hebrews 10:24)  Wouldn't blogging eat up a lot of time?  Maybe...but, it also might be a better investment of time than say...Facebook-stalking! 

I did eventually share my thought with my sweetness and he was all over it like our yellow lab, Jonah, is with a raw-hide chewey.  Now...several months later I've surmised it's time to batten down the hatches and let 'er fly.  So, as Jackie Gleason used to say, "...and away we go!"  (...does anyone even remember who Jackie Gleason was...sigh...)