When Things Go Wrong

Hello from the sunny South!

Our family is currently in Florida doing prison ministry, and tonight, we went to give a program for a re-entry center about an hour from our motel. I was kinda excited for our first program, and check-in and security went more smoothly than usual.

Unfortunately, the rest of the evening wasn’t as smooth. Pretty much our whole family is struggling with colds at the moment. Nothing terrible, but runny noses, scratchy voices, and bad breath support–none of which are great for singing. My ears were also closed for most of the night.

Thanks to these issues (and the amount of time we didn’t spend practicing before coming this year), basically everything went wrong during that program. At least that’s how it seemed to me, though in all honesty I’m a bit of a perfectionist in my opinion of how our programs should sound. But this one was worse than usual. We got off-key. We missed chords. We sang songs too slow. We sang songs too fast. We missed cues. The men clapped, but I cringed.

The worst happened during the second to last song, my only lead. I had pushed for us to sing that song, and I was excited for it. Maybe God needed to humble me or something, because as I got to the bridge, I realized that the rest of my music was missing. I had the first five pages, and after that … nothing.

Callie saw the problem and came over to help, but before we figured out where my music had disappeared to, I ran out of notes to play. I had no choice but to stop mid-line. My dad started talking, stalling for time as Callie flipped furiously through the pages, searching for my missing music.

The men laughed and clapped for us when we finally found the music, and I was able to finish the song, but it was discouraging. After all, the program before this point hadn’t gone particularly well, and now, on top of that, I had just wrecked my only lead.

Our last song was another piano song, Andrew Peterson’s Is He Worthy…
and the spirit of worship during that song blew me away.

As we finished the first chorus, the crowd erupted in cheers and applause at the declaration that Jesus is worthy. We kept singing, but my mood had changed with their applause. Something about hearing the whole room echoing with affirmation, especially in a place like that.

When we finished, the men gave us a standing ovation as we went to take our seats.

Isn’t it amazing, the ways God can use us? From my view, our program was a failure, especially my song. But it wasn’t me that mattered, it was God. And God decided to use our goof-ups, our mistakes, and our “failures” to deliver the most important message to a group of people who desperately needed it.

In some ways, that’s the most exciting things about serving God. God isn’t looking for perfect people to come and do his work. He just needs willing people to come and do what He asks. And when we do that, He works. Even when we’re off-key. Even when we’re sick. Even when we lose our music and it’s embarrassing.

God still uses us.

And that blows me away.