When God Made Me A Musician

One very old and retired accordian

Laura, this one is for you. Make it talk Girl!

Times were pretty hard growing up in 50’s. Dad raised most of our food and mom put it in jars for the winters. Dad hunted for meat and worked whatever jobs he could find to support our large family. In the cotton season we would all pile into Dad’s big pug nosed truck and head from Arkansas to Oklahoma, to make extra money for the winter. Incidentally, don’t feel sorry for us. We loved it. The work was hard, but it only lasted for a few weeks. It was an opportunity for two or three families of kinfolks to share one home. We called it bunking. There was lots of guitar strumming and conversations in the evenings after work, and plenty of cousins to play with. We grew up considerably free, happy and laid back. It was during this time in my childhood that an incredible miracle happened in my life. A story I read in the bible this morning brought it all back to me. I wish I had the right words to show you how God did something for me that was so incredible even though I was so very young and with no one to help me.

Picture the prophet Elisha and two kings, sin and failure and an impending war. Things are bad, and the king needs to get in touch with someone who can get in touch with God. Kind of like what we need today. When I read what Elisha did when the king ask him to find out what God had to say, I was impressed with Elisha’s answer.

“Bring me someone to play music, please,” putting it in my words. Bible version follows.

2 King 3:15 But now bring me a minstrel. And it came to pass, when the minstrel played, that the hand of the LORD came upon him.
The musician actually played and helped the prophet hear from God. That made me think about what influence music has on the world we live in good and bad. I also remembered how years ago, God made me a musician. There was no magic wand involved. God didn't smack me with a bolt, and bang, I knew everything I needed to know. God did give me desire, courage, encouragement, inspiration and most important, knowledge to learn.

At a very young age, I had an overwhelming desire to play the accordion and piano. To take lessons at that time was not an option because there was no extra money. However, there was another teacher that I could go to, and that was the God that I had found as a small child. I became acquainted with him at a very young age.

You would not find any type of keyboard in our home in the early fifties. Mandolins, guitars, banjos, even harmonics, but no keyboard. Yet the keyboard was the one instrument that I yearned to play. I remember my dad make a statement one day that I found very aggravating and frustrating. “If I knew my girls could play a piano, I would try to find them one. “ Now how was I ever going to learn to play if I did not have a piano!

I had such a strong desire to touch a keyboard, that I would have the same dream about it over and over. I would be almost close enough to touch those beautiful ivory keys and then the instrument would disappear into thin air, or something would happen to keep me at arms length.

One day that dream really happened. A neighboring family was selling their home furnishings and moving away. Siblings, cousins, parents, the whole lot of us went to see what they had for sale. Ah! Right in the corner of the old house was an old upright piano. There was also a line of siblings and cousins ahead of me, waiting to bang on those ivory keys. Hey, I can wait just as long as I get a turn. Just before I got the chance
Dad yelled that it was time to go. My feet felt as heavy as lead when I walked away leaving my chance to touch the keys behind in that old ramshackle house.

When God designs something, it will happen. I know that a higher power destined for me to be a musician. Sometime later, I walked beside my mother into a little second hand shop, on a side street in a city in Oklahoma. While browsing Mom found a book about how to learn to play the accordion. She tucked it under her arm. When we got ready to purchase our things, a woman standing close by saw the book and remarked that she had an accordion that she never played. One thing led to another until I found myself walking beside my dad up a steep stairway. My little rusty, brown feet sank down in the deep red carpet and took my breath away. Finally, at the top, the lady opened a door to us and there was more red carpet inside. There to my hungry eyes was a sight that looked like apples of gold in pictures of silver.

An accordion case was opened exposing a huge, man sized, ivory colored accordion. To this day, I cannot recall ever seeing anything more beautiful and appealing
  I was always a skinny little kid, and it took a big part of my life for my body to catch up with my arms and legs. Mama said I was a sight trying to see over that big oversized instrument. Until I had more growth on me, all you could see was my elbows and arms waving in an out, and the top of my fuzzy hair.

There are still more barriers between this dream and me. I had worked very hard in the cotton fields and I had twenty-five dollars of hard-earned money, tucked inside my dad’s shirt pocket. That is the amount I had made and that was the amount the woman with blonde hair told my mom she would sell for.

“How much are you asking,?” Dad said.

This was one savvy, lady packed full of shrewdness and knowledge. She looked at me quickly. “What did I say I would take? Wasn’t it thirty five dollars?”

My heart sank! I knew exactly how much money was in Dad’s pocket, and I felt sure that he would pay an extra ten dollars over what I had earned. I also knew that Dad was a trader. He offered the amount of money in his shirt pocket, and my feet were very light on that plush, red carpet as we left, Dad carrying my dream in his big hand.

How hard I worked to learn to play. That old accordion lesson book was in tatters by the time God and I finished with it. Even though it was written in English, I do believe that some parts of it were explained in Greek. At least it was Greek to me. When I came upon those difficult lessons, there was a small out building that I carried book and instrument to. That is where I took my questions to my heavenly Father, and that is where He answered me. I never did anything in a calm, cool way. I am sure that everyone with hearing distance, heard my hearty petitions, as I called out to God for help on my road to musical wonder.

In the beginning, I played for anyone who would listen or anyone who pretended to listen. (Bless those people.) I played anywhere I had the opportunity, and I played before I learned how to play. (Bless those people again.)

Over the years that have passed, I have come to realize what a wonderful call and gift that God gave me. Sometimes I see it in the faces of people I am privileged to play for.

Thank God for everything that I experienced on my way. I will never forget it, and I wish that I were able to tell you about it in a way that would cause you to realize you have a special talent and potential that you may not have developed or plugged into.