In the corner of the top shelf in my walkin closet. That’s where it has been hiding for years. If I were to put a specific number in front of the word years it would be just a dart in the dark. Because I have no idea how long it’s been tucked away up there.
A Bach Stradivarius trumpet. Belonging to my husband. A Christmas gift from his parents when he was in his junior year of high school. That horn has lots of miles on it for sure. But it hasn’t had its passport stamped in a while. A long while.
But oh, the memories.
The smell alone opened a flood gate of memories. That man of mine caught my teenage eye while playing his trumpet. (He’d already won my heart by the time this particular trumpet turned up under the Christmas tree.) I can hear him playing scales like a lizard scurrying up a brick wall. I hear him screaming the highest note his lips could muster, using his favorite mouthpiece.
And from the crevices of my brain comes marching our high school alma mater. Our fight song. A respectful offering of Taps for someone’s final salute. And can I just tell you how perfect a profile he had while perfecting his aperture. Okay. Sorry. This is not the direction I planned to go with this. (Blush!)
So, the memories. Dare I say it for all of my band nerd friends? The band room! Oh, the sounds and smell of a high school band room. Ahhhhhh…anyone? Walk into the band room on any given day and it’s total chaos. Or so it appears. So it sounds.
You see, (for all of you non-band folks) during free time or pre-rehearsal, most everyone is sitting in their places practicing. But they are not practicing the same parts. Maybe not even the same song. The trumpet players, for instance, could be practicing the same song, but different sections of the same song. Or perhaps they are all practicing the same section, but at different tempos, just to get the fingering down. Imagine the flutes doing the same. The clarinets and trombones, well, all doing their own thing, all at the same time! It sounds like total chaos. It can be a bit unnerving if you aren’t aware of what is really going on. If you don’t see the bigger picture.
It may sound like chaos; it’s not. It’s called process.
Sometimes our lives feel like chaos. Things out of our control. People out of our control. Decisions out of our control.
At this very moment in my life…everything seems out of my control.
But the one thing that is never out of my control is the way I respond to those things, people, and decisions. Our responses to our own feelings. Our responses to the actions of others.
Our responses are evidence of the work God has done in us. The work God is doing in us. And evidence of the work that remains to be done in us.
Being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.
PHILIPPIANS 1:6
God is ultimately in control. He is the very One who established and is working in the process.
Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, and faithful in prayer.)
ROMANS 12:12
That, dear friends, is the very description of process.
Yes. We are responsible for our part in the process, doing the hard work of surrender. Say it slowly. Surrender. That IS the work we are called to do. We are the instruments. God is the Maestro. And while our rehearsal may sound and feel like chaos at times, He is writing a symphony. Shall we tune our hearts to His? Let’s play along. And trust that He will make some beautiful music!
Angi Aymond 
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