God's Sufficient Grace

May

I was talking to my Dad last night, telling him about all of my upcoming concerts and the stressful, busy time I'm in the midst of, and he asked me to write down the dates of each of them so that he could be in prayer for me this month. (I counted them up last week and realized that I have one performance of some sort a week for the last 6 weeks of school!!) I thought I'd also put those dates on my blog, so that others could pray too. I feel a little self-centered in doing this, though, as I know that May is an incredibly busy time for everyone, so I don't at all mean to imply that I'm under any more stress than all of you. My list of prayer requests for friends and family members seems to increase daily as I listen to how much other people that I love have going on and the transitions many are facing at the end of this school year.

But for those who would like to pray, here's my concert schedule:

~ Friday, May 2nd - Middle School concert. I'll be directing my 6th and 7th Grade String classes (the choirs and bands at school will also perform, but I don't work with those groups). I was very discouraged after our dress rehearsal yesterday because they sounded so bad and I felt like such a failure of a teacher. Today was more encouraging though, so I am hopeful...
~ Friday, May 9th - High School concert. I'm accompanying one of the HS choirs! I'm excited, but am not the best pianist in the world by a long-shot, so I'm hoping I don't mess up the students!!
~ Thursday, May 15th - Elementary (3rd/4th Grade) "His Story" Musical. This is the big one for me as I'm organizing/directing the entire musical. Many people are helping me, but there are so many things that ultimately only I can do or decisions that I still have to make. And there are so many details involved! The ironic thing is that my least concern is whether or not the students will be ready: they're SUPER excited and know their music and lines well. I'm very afraid at this point that May 15th will come and I won't have all the costumes, set, props, sound system, lights, program, accompaniment/band or other things in place and we'll have to call the whole thing off!
~ Saturday, May 24th - High School Graduation. My 7th Graders are playing prelude/background music before the ceremony. This is the one class I won't be teaching next year (something that is very sad for me as I've grown to be pretty close with these students) so I'm praying for a really good last performance with them!
~ Tuesday, May 27th - 5th Grade Beginning Strings/Band concert.
~ Thursday, June 5th (last day of school!) - Kindergarten Graduation. K4 and K5 will sing.

So, busy days. Several friends/co-workers have commented that they've hardly seen me the last few weeks, except when I'm running past them on the way to something (usually a rehearsal!). It's been a bit of a roller-coaster emotionally too as I frequently get discouraged with my inability to teach or organize or plan well. Each of these performances seems to bring out specific areas of great weakness in me as a teacher, musician or person. I'm learning to rejoice in those weaknesses as I see them as an opportunity for God to be glorified as He shows Himself strong. He IS working and I find myself standing in awe of Him daily as He accomplishes things that either are beyond my control or beyond my abilities. It's been amazing to carry every concern (however small) to Him in prayer in the mornings and then be able to praise Him by the end of the day after I watched Him truly take care of that issue. He's also showing me (again) the strengths of others around me and helping me (in a healthy way, I think) depend on other people that are gifted in areas that I simply am not. It's beautiful to see a picture of the body of Christ in that.

So thank you for praying! Soon the craziness will be over and I know I'll have one more testimony to write on my heart of God's faithfulness in yet another season of my life.

(Pictures of India will come soon - I promise!)

posted by Catherine Rogers @ 6:16 AM