In 2009, I rehearsed with a community choir every Saturday for about three months to prepare for a one night Christmas concert of the Messiah. I sang with a group of internationals mixed with a few Koreans. The music was constantly in my head as I was learning my parts. Jean Marcel and I started dating somewhere during the middle of this. Sometimes we would spend the morning together. Then he would hunker down in a coffee shop during my three hour rehearsal and when I'd be through, I'd come out to find him waiting.
On the day of the performance, I woke up terribly sick; I could hardly move. I was supposed to sing that night and then fly home the next day. The timing was awful. That day, Jean Marcel came over with nourishing food and medicine. He then went out in the freezing weather to finish my last minute Christmas shopping. When he returned, the medicine had kicked in and I was feeling well enough to try to make it to the concert. But if I was going to make it, I didn't have much time to get ready. I'll never forget him blow drying my hair as I frantically put on make-up. We rushed out to a cab together and I still believe it was a miracle that we made it. These experiences certainly helped to seal the deal on how I felt about Jean Marcel.
When the Christmas 2010 season rolled around, it was Jean Marcel who turned on the Messiah and kept our home filled with it's music. He started singing selections of it in the church choir and grew to love it just as much as I did. At 8-9 months pregnant I traded in my independence for his support and as Handel played through speakers at home, Jean Marcel was putting on my socks and shoes for me. He was preparing meals and massaging my back. We went to the live performance together and vowed to seek it out every year, no matter where we lived. If I made a movie of our life, there would be a montage of images of him serving me with Handel's Messiah playing in the background.
So for those reasons alone, this music became very personal to me. But with the backdrop of the story of Christ playing so constantly in our lives, it was also compelling to consider the action we were taking of bringing our own child into this world, a world purchased by the sinless life and love of the Savior. This year, more than considering how His life affected mine, I found myself thinking about the conditions of this world to which I would be introducing my daughter.
This is a world where Jesus Christ was despised and rejected by his people, by all people. It is a place where is so easy to go astray and acquire heavy burdens and harsh wounds from our own choices and from the casualties of living together. This is a world of sorrow. But in great love, Christ was born. He fed His flock with love and with truth. He bore our grief and carried our sorrows of guilt and of pain and through the stripes of physical lashes, He made healing for all mankind possible. As He died and released himself from the gravity of this world, He rose again in triumph, living again and offering direction for us to do the same.
As I listened to this music and as I thought about my daughter, still growing inside of me, I knew that she had already chosen to follow the plan of Christ. Coming to Earth, she would inevitably face the grief of trials and suffering. But she was still on her way, following the plan of Jesus Christ. What a brave soul! I realized that it was my responsibility to show her how to understand the Savior as my parents showed me. I also recognized that teaching her would connect me to my Earthly parents and my Heavenly parents. The music struck me with how beautiful the plan really is and in bringing a child into the world, I was becoming an integral component in the mechanisms of this eternal plan. Like Job and like Handel, I recognized again that my Redeemer liveth and because of this, I would be able to raise my child to feel peace in our home and find peace in her life.
In December 2010, Jean Marcel brought me to Handel. Handel brought me to Christ. Christ brought me to more fully understanding and loving my unborn child.
Hallelujah.
Beautiful story Sara
ReplyDelete