Exhaustion seeped into my bones after a week of busy tasks, one after the other checked off the list, my effort to keep myself on track.

Recitals, piano students, celebration, music that thrills me proves holy in the deep part of my soul. And how is it that I get to be part of these young growing musicians? It is too wonderful to express.

Remembering almost twenty years ago to the position that was eliminated due to budget cuts, how the shock of loosing my job, my career, sent me packing boxes from the nice office and title on the door. My staff and I were numb as I tried to keep smiling for morale sake.

Holding back the tears, the sounds I heard were dissonant and without reason or rhythm.

Yet, I see it was good for me to be released, set free to fly and sing a new song.

The desire of my heart, surely put there by my Creator, began small. I put up a poster and paid for an ad in the local paper: “Piano lessons.”

Today, this weekend, these many years later, my students flourish, and I rejoice in what God has done.

What was meant to hinder my progress became a new path, and I found a calling I had faintly heard as a whisper.

God takes the difficult, the painful, the broken and remakes, reforms, and restores to bring forth beauty from the heap.

It’s what He does most excellently. And He does it beautifully in perfect timing, creating a song of praise.

Monday grace.