God's Sufficient Grace

Christmas concerts

Most of you (other than Dad, Leslie, and any of my music-educator friends) are probably wondering why I'm thinking about Christmas when September is not even over yet! Well, it's that time of year for musicians: time to pull out the Christmas music and start rehearsing for special concerts and services. Tonight I spent some time planning out my Christmas programs and how I'm going to teach the music to the kids and I got so excited! The students will soon see my excitement, as I'll be introducing them to the music later this week and the next, but I couldn't wait to share it with someone!

I'll be directing two (Elementary) Christmas concerts this year one week apart, one at each campus where I teach. For a number of reasons, I decided to pick a different musical/program for each campus and I've very excited about each. I really love the music we'll be doing (me loving the music I teach is actually pretty high on my list of criteria for concert music! My very wise co-operating teacher encouraged me to never teach a lesson or piece of music I couldn't be excited about, because if I don't like it, the kids won't either), but more than that, I'm so excited about sharing pieces of the gospel with my students throughout the next few months that we work on this music, telling them the amazing truth of what Christmas is all about. AND, I'm so excited, eager to see, and prayerfully nervous (if that makes any sense at all!) at what God might do not just in the students' hearts this Christmas, but also in their parents' hearts as they come to see their children perform. I've had these Christmas concerts on my heart actually since last Christmas and have been praying (intermittently) since then that God would do great, eye-opening, life-changing things through them. Please pray earnestly with me to that end!

At the larger campus, we'll be doing "Jesus, Light of the World," which Pinewood did a year or two before I taught there. I've very eager to get my mom's "director's notes" to it all and a copy of Mrs. Tolson's rewritten script. The musical is perfect for an international school, as it includes Christmas carols from all around the world - a few of which we'll sing (Lord willing!) in different languages too! As I was looking more closely at the words to the main, opening/closing song tonight though, I discovered that the message is more perfect than I even hoped for as I prayed for guidance while picking out this music...

Jesus, Light of the world,
hope and salvation for all the earth.
Jesus, Light of the world,
from every nation we come to celebrate your birth.

My eyes filled with tears and chills went up my spine as I read those words. He is the hope and salvation for ALL the earth! Every NATION will celebrate our Jesus! My mind imagined the ICS students, a mixture of so many different nationalities and cultures, singing those words. Wow! I remember Maria Francis praying during my commissioning at Immanuel about how I would have the "nations" in my classroom. If anything thrills me most about being here, it's that: each day, all at once in one room, I have the opportunity to reach the NATIONS with the gospel and tell them about the hope that Christ offered them as He came to earth!! The opportunity there is HUGE, the responsibility massive, the joy inexpressible! Pray that I will speak these life-giving words with clarity and that our God would WORK!

posted by Catherine Rogers @ 6:11 AM