Miracles at a Bar

First of all… I'm sorry I haven't written for so long. We have had so many visitors and events for the children I haven't had any time at all. I am making a list of all the things I still want to write about. When will I ever catch up??? :-) I'll just keep trying. :-)

Miracles at a Bar in Jacksonville

Abe is teaching voice lessons to a young girl who was performing at a big competition in Jacksonville last weekend. She asked Jackson to be her drummer. What an experience for these two 13-year olds. They were the youngest performers at the event, and there was some VERY impressive talent there.

There was so much traffic at the competition that we all had to carry all the pieces to Jackson's drum set for almost 4 blocks (without Abe's strong arms because he was out of town).

When we arrived at the first venue, a nut was missing off Jackson's cymbals and the pedal was broken on his hi-hat cymbals. We didn't know what was wrong, but it seemed as if a part was missing. Neither would function properly without those missing parts.

All my children prayed for help, and several of us began retracing our steps back to the van to see if we could find any shiny pieces that could possibly be the parts we were missing.

I found a random nut lying on the sidewalk. I picked it up knowing it wasn't the exact piece that he was missing, but I was hopeful it might help fix something somehow. When I returned to the venue where Jackson was trying so hard to put his pieces together, we were all overjoyed to discover that the random nut fit the cymbal!! What are the chances that it would be an exact fit?!? I knew God had HIS hand in that for sure.

The other, more serious problem was the foot pedal for the hi-hat…

I approached the owner of the establishment for help. We didn't want Jackson to miss this opportunity, and we didn't want his singer to be without her backup drummer. The owner happened to also be a drummer and very generously loaned us his hi-hat foot pedal stand for our first show. We were so grateful for the temporary solution, but I was still worried about Jackson's next show which would be at a different venue. I was also worried about the shows over the following days. (This competition lasted several days.)

Nobody I asked seemed to know the problem with the stand nor the solution.

I sat off to the side and prayed over Jackson's hi-hat stand- pleading for God's help. I asked God to help me figure out how to fix the problem. I said, "Heavenly Father, you helped us to buy this drum set because of thy miracles. Please help us to be able to use it for these very important shows."

The more I tried to fix it, the more I began to feel a bit frustrated that I wasn't receiving any answers from God. As we began to set up for the next venue, which happened to be in a bar, I watched the sound technician racing around connecting wires and cords. I was afraid to ask him for help with our hi-hat stand and foot pedal because he looked so busy… but we truly were desperate.

The sound technician looked at it for 2 seconds and immediately knew the problem: the spring inside was broken, and we would need to buy a new one. A moan began to escape my mouth when he interrupted me and said, "BUT I think I have an extra one that Jackson can have."  He ran to the back and pulled out a really nice, hi-hat foot-pedal and stand. It was of a MUCH higher quality than the one we owned. These nice hi-hat foot pedal stands are VERY expensive!! I couldn't believe he even had an extra of exactly what we needed, and I couldn't believe he was GIVING it to us.

I cried and both Jackson and I thanked him over and over again. He opened his arms and gave us hugs.

I told him I had been praying for a solution but never imagined such a beautiful one.

As we stood in the bar where Jackson would be performing his second show and with people beginning to come in, this kind-hearted sound technician took the time to talk with us about God. He said that lots of people had helped him as a young musician, so he was happy to pass that on. He bore firm testimony that there are no coincidences in this life and that God blesses us with beautiful miracles in our lives at times when we think all is going wrong. What an AWESOME GUY!! Jackson really enjoyed working with him.

I couldn't stop thinking about this experience all week:

I had prayed for God to help me FIX the situation. I actually became a little bit frustrated with God because I felt as if HE wasn't answering my prayers in the way that I thought was best. After I saw the whole picture, I was quite humbled to realize that not only was God answering my prayers, but HE was answering them far better than I had imagined.

The hi-hat stand we now had was far better than anything we could have imagined owning or fixing, and the conversation that Jackson and I had with the sound technician was priceless… It was a moment to remember forever… a moment to forever inspire my young musician.

I am learning to accept and TRUST that God's ways are much better than my ways… and I am grateful for the times when I am able to see that so clearly.

Jackson's 2nd Venue

Jackson's 3rd Venue