| |
THE CHURCH WAS SILENT once Grandma Lucy left. Katrina gazed around the sanctuary, which seemed so much emptier without the old woman’s powerful prayers shattering the darkness. How would it feel to be a believer like Grandma Lucy, someone whose faith was so steadfast that she carried her own power and radiance with her wherever she went?
What would her friends in California think of this old woman, with her eccentric ways and bold faith? There were only a small handful of Christians in the Long Beach Symphony, but even the unbelievers in the group would have to recognize the intensity of Grandma Lucy’s soul.
Echoes of the old woman’s prayer ran through her mind. Healed of all her wounds. What would that even look like? And had Grandma Lucy only been praying about the miscarriage? Or was there more to it than that — Katrina’s childhood with a mother who dragged her through three different rounds of unhappy marriages, who insisted on controlling every single aspect of her daughter’s life for so many years she hardly knew what it was like to have an opinion of her own. And when she did, she couldn’t express it.
Maybe that was what was so compelling about her voice teacher. Miles was so straightforward. So unafraid to speak his mind. It was the same with Greg early on, part of what drew her to him. That confidence.
And now, thanks to the tactless and highly opinionated members of Orchard Grove Bible Church, Greg lived out most days in the shadows, trying to please and accommodate everyone and letting the stress from his job erode his marriage.
But if today were any indication, maybe things would start to get better. The church might always be stressful. Orchard Grove was just that sort of community, and Katrina would be foolish to think that she could hope for any significant change in a congregation like this. But if she and her husband had a strong relationship, if they were able to enjoy every day the kind of closeness they shared together this afternoon, she could endure any number of superfluous business meetings, catty gossips, and petty complaints about her clothes, about her housekeeping skills, about her cooking, about her general inability to be the pastor’s wife the members of Orchard Grove Bible Church thought they needed.
Too bad she and Greg had already gotten into another fight tonight, already tarnished the few hours’ worth of peace and harmony they’d created earlier. What had it been about anyway? Oh yeah. Her singing warmups. As if there weren’t more important things for a couple to get upset over. She still hadn’t called Miles, still hadn’t asked him to meet her at the church for tomorrow’s lesson. Maybe she’d go ahead and continue singing with him at the school. If all Greg was going to do was poke fun at her attempts to improve her voice, she certainly didn’t want to practice in the church while he was around.
Katrina wiped the rosin off her strings but hesitated before she tucked Dmitry in for the night. One more song. Snow was falling, each individual flake illuminated by the streetlamp outside. The decorations in the sanctuary reminded her of an arrangement she’d played at a youth group Christmas party several years ago. If she remembered right, that had been the first time Greg ever heard her play.
Mary’s Medley, she’d called it. Not a very creative title, but she was proud of the piece itself. A mix of Christmas songs, both old and new, that focused on Jesus’s mother. It had been years since she played it, but the substance was in the piece’s emotional lyricism, not in its technical demands.
With Dmitry in hand, she walked back up to the stage and stood by the Christmas tree, at a point beneath the vaulted ceiling where the acoustics were a fraction brighter than in other parts of the church.
Mary, did you know? As she played, Katrina found herself wondering if Mary had experienced any miscarriages after the miraculous birth of the Savior. There was so much about this young mother that had been lost to the annals of history. What was it like to hold baby Jesus for the first time?
And now onto What Child Is This? after a transition that was as polished as if Katrina had been rehearsing for weeks.
Whom shepherds guard and angels sing. And yet Mary sat quietly, musing on the birth of her precious baby, storing up all these treasures in her heart.
Katrina didn’t know what it felt like to hold a newborn child for the first time, but she knew the weight of a mother’s empty arms. Knew the heaviness of that pain beneath your rib cage as your soul cries out for the child you’ve lost.
Next a contemporary song where the scared and overwhelmed teenage mother prays for God to sustain her. It seemed almost sacrilegious to project this amount of uncertainty and timidity on someone as revered as the Virgin Mary, but tonight Katrina experienced a deeper connection to the piece than she ever had before. Her bow was as soft and graceful as the finest of silks. Her body swayed in time with the music as she allowed the melody to wash over her. The comfort and healing that Grandma Lucy prayed over her didn’t seem so difficult to obtain. Katrina infused the music with her own fears, her own uncertainties, her own tenuous hopes, adding embellishments she hadn’t thought to insert in the original arrangement.
Thwack.
Her D string snapped in the middle of the phrase. She had an extra one in her case, but she refused to stop, still longing to create that perfect sound, the heavenly breath that is the musician’s torturous muse.
She improvised for a few more refrains, playing in the higher positions on her G string or transposing up an octave onto A, but when she finished the last verse, she still didn’t think she’d done the song justice.
Breath of heaven ...
She was only planning to sing softly, hardly more than a hum, just so she could work out a new transition in her mind.
After the first chorus, Katrina tucked her violin under her arm, shut her eyes, and tried to achieve that deep diaphragm breathing Miles had so recently taught her.
Breath of heaven...
It was the first time she sang in the sanctuary instead of letting the four walls of the cry room dampen the sound of her voice. The notes rang out clear and vibrant, rising up to the vaulted ceiling, dancing in the wide open spaces.
Something Miles told her earlier replayed in her mind. “I’m not helping you create a new voice. I’m just showing you how to find the one you’ve got.”
Could it really be true? Had she truly possessed this gift her entire life? Had this voice that rang out now, that sent her spirit soaring heavenward, really belonged to her all this time? It had lain dormant, trapped beneath a heavy weight of fear, bound by chains of insecurity, but now that it was free, Katrina sensed that she would never be the same again.