(in) joyful service: Day 5 A Joyful Noise

The room smelled of sweaty adolescent boys who had just come from gym class. They crowded around the thin bearded man. I could hear his voice tone sweet and low as he asked one boy if he would please just try to play a trumpet. The teacher ran his finger thoughtfully along the edge of the brass horn as he spoke. The boy replied, "no, I just want to play the drums!" Soon it became apparent that all these boys gathered wanted to play drums in the school band. From the edge of the room I watched this gentle man worked through the group of energetic boys and various instruments. Each boy giving in to the teacher to try something new and unfamiliar.

Even though we home schooled, this man offered to teach our daughter clarinet. He was a teacher at a junior high school and had invited her to come for lessons each week after his regular classes were finished. It was quite a gift unexpected because he was a master musician. Arriving early afforded us a glimpse of the teacher and his last class of the day. The children were of every level of ability and I suspect some were not there by choice.

As we entered the building each week for the lesson you could hear the squeaks and squawks of the band. I don't pretend to know much about music, but I can kind of tell when instruments are not hitting the right notes or rhythm. Honestly they sounded pretty awful, but seemed to be enjoying themselves. We stood quietly in the shadows in the back and the teacher he stood directing in the front. The old music master was just grinning and oh how he praised and encouraged his rag-a-muffin group of aspiring musicians just as if he were leading the Philharmonic Orchestra itself.

It wasn't right away. In fact I'm not sure when it did happen. But one day we came in and there was the sweetest sounds coming from that room. The stringed instruments sang, while the brass section boomed and the woodwind instruments whistled shrilly yet harmoniously. All the while the percussion instruments placed their exclamation points and the rat-a-tat-tat of the one boy who remained as the drummer chimed in.

Somehow the teacher had taught, encouraged, and coaxed this sad sack group and now they were making such a joyful noise together.

The part I like best is that long before the young musicians "got it" the teacher praised them as if they had.

Then the group began to believe that they could.

And then they did.

At first they just made noise with joy-filled hearts and in the end they were making a joyful noise.

Oh sisters. Could that be us?

Perhaps we would believe what our Master Teacher says about us and set out to do the things He has entrusted us to do. And that as we live this way the people around us can hear with their hearts the joyful noise our lives are making.