Born a King

We had our Christmas cantata this afternoon at Fillmore UM. After we were on the stage and the bell prelude was already playing, it suddenly dawned on me that I had not given my camera to Dick. I saw the director's husband taking pictures, so I hoped I could get some pictures from him. Then the second thing dawned on me. I had forgotten to get my reading glasses out of my purse, which was in the church basement. Thankfully, my eyes cooperated and my contacts did not get dry, and I was able to see my music pretty well.

It went very well, and Dick did get this picture with his cell phone.

The narrations in the cantata were very familiar scripture passages about the birth of Christ. But in that setting today, and with the powerful and emotional voice of Mary Anna, our narrator, I often felt close to tears. At one point, I was completely in tears and could not sing at all. She read the scripture about all the baby boys two years and under being ordered to be killed, then we women proceeded into a song about Rachel crying for her children and not being able to be comforted. I imagined that there was probably a mother whose precious baby boy was 23 months old, just as Austin is now - almost two years old, but not quite. And I just felt like sobbing. What a sad, horrible time in history.

Since we're home I've been waiting for news from Florida about the big "reveal" at 4:00 today which Lisa facilitated.  We did get to see a small blurb about it on Tampa's Fox 13 live news at 6:00.  Of course, as the news so often does, they condensed their information so much that they almost missed the point.  They made it sound like this was a church project.  I'm sure there were people from their church who contributed, but the majority of the people who did were total strangers to the woman they were helping, which has made the outpouring of support so incredible.  I'm so eager to see pictures.