Doing this week's Bible study brought to mind a very real
example of God's mercy.
In 2004, our choir performed Honegger’s "King David" for our spring concert. For reasons that still escape me, I decided to audition for the part of the Witch of Endor -- and got it. I dutifully memorized my part, which was an incantation that was woven through very menacing background music and ran somewhere between 2-3 minutes. It started out at a whisper and culminated in a couple of blood-curdling screams as Samuel appeared.
As the weekend of the concert arrived, we had an intense
3-hour choir rehearsal on Thursday night (minus my solo). Friday night I
had an additional rehearsal with the orchestra to go over my part. We
spent about half an hour on that 2-3 minute solo -- trying to get my microphone
and the various instrument levels set so that it all worked together to the
best effect. I lost track of how many times I ended up screaming.
Saturday morning brought the 3-hour dress rehearsal with orchestra...and
another round of screams.
Sunday morning I woke up to get ready to go to church to
sing for our two services....only to discover I had ABSOLUTELY NO VOICE.
Nothing. Nada. The performance was that evening and there was no
understudy for my part. Panic would be understating my immediate reaction.
My husband called in for me to tell them I was going to miss that morning
because my voice was questionable, and I spent the rest of the morning and all
afternoon not talking, praying constantly for God's assistance and a healing,
and drinking a lot of hot water.
By early afternoon I had a whisper, by mid afternoon a soft
voice that cracked, and by the time I needed to go to church I had lost the
crack, but the voice was still pretty soft.
I talked to the sound technician and explained that Friday's
settings were useless and he'd better crank it up the best he could because I
had no voice to speak of. I joined the choir and asked a couple of my
friends sitting around me to pray like the dickens when I got up to do my
solo. I knew I'd need their help.
The concert started. There were 11 movements before I
made my appearance and I lip-synced most of it, trying out my voice a few notes
at a time here and there to limber up. The time came for me to go
backstage and change. I took those few moments to pray for God's voice,
calmed my nerves, and stepped up onto the raised platform to begin the
incantation.
My voice was there. I
whispered my way through the first few “spells” and then began building in
volume. Two screams to go…with some
spoken script between them. I modified
the screams slightly and made it through.
Samuel “appeared” and the narrator took over. I stepped off the platform and returned to
the choir room to get back into my robe, thanking God all the while for giving
me a voice. As I slipped back into the
choir, I found my place in the music and prepared to enjoy singing the rest of
the concert. Nothing. Nada.
Once again, I had absolutely no voice, not even the whispered volume of
earlier that afternoon. The concert
would be finished in silence, for me.
As we left that evening, our choir director stopped me to
congratulate me on a good job. I smiled
and thanked her with a softly croaked whisper.
She was stunned, to say the least.
I just smiled, pointed up toward heaven and shrugged. She got the message, loud and clear. God had taken mercy on the witch of Endor and had given her a voice that she might both experience and help proclaim the message
of God’s glory.
