Strings and Strands

This past summer, I helped my younger sister transport her harp home after her performance in a town festival. Even writing that sentence makes me smile because it I know it is a pretty unique statement to claim. I found out about this upcoming performance when I attended her recital and heard her perform among a host of harpists. Although I may seem entirely biased, I can say with conviction that out of the fifteen harpists that day, my sister’s talent stopped the room and stilled the audience. She most definitely has a gift, but it is a gift refined. I know the time she consistently commits to that instrument each and every week.

Growing up in my family, the motto rang “if you breathe, you play the piano.” And sure enough, when the opportunity came in fourth grade to join the school band or orchestra, each of us picked a second instrument. But no, my sister did not choose the harp at that point, she chose the flute. Ironic, I know.

Sports soon became the next big opportunity and eventually my sister and I were trading in our secondary instruments of the cello and flute, to try out for basketball and volleyball teams at our large public high school. Volleyball became our shared sport and the coaches’ decision to pull my little sister up to the junior varsity volleyball team earlier than most gave us the rare experience of practicing on courts right next to one another, sharing a gym for a year.

But over time, she began expressing she felt different than me, feeling she lacked a passion for sports, and eventually verbalized that she did not think she was a “real team sports” person. So going into her Senior year she made what, to me, seemed like a completely unconventional decision and let go of volleyball in order to take up the harp.

I distinctly remember feeling something between confusion and deep admiration. Her choice confounded what I knew, what I believed to be the comfortable norm. I watched her not only decide, but follow through with a choice I never would have made. When my friends began to ask why she chose to walk away from it and I explained her decision, I surprisingly felt an increasing sense of pride. I could see it in their faces too, half shock and half deep-rooted respect. My little sister was capable of changing course, pursuing something that challenged the norm at a time in life when most adolescents crave the comfort of peer approval.

Hit the fast forward button, the next four years of life zoom by. Press play.

That same sister is sitting on the porch of our home after making a second life-changing decision. One that once again, shattered what we like to believe is the norm but this time shattering her heart, costing her nearly everything. There are no words to portray the pain that I saw accompany choosing to walk away from walking down the aisle in a matter of weeks. Choosing to listen to the Spirit’s conviction, choosing to fear God first, more than any person, any perception… that sacrifice defies explanation, it does not fit our worldly definitions.

I once again was faced with an unavoidable question, one that this time mattered far more-

would I have made the same choice?

I think there are moments when we are faced with choosing between listening and submitting to the Spirit’s call or instead quieting that voice and continuing on. But the more we choose to quiet the voice, the more we march down that path, the more we raise the stakes, until that same choice can become one of the hardest we ever have to face.

Watching my sister risk everything, allowing herself to get stripped of her entire life plan and identity… that’s radical faith.

And it is humbling to witness.

If you saw my sister today, you would probably be shocked at her confidence and humbled at how sure she seems of her identity. You might feel that same mix of confusion and deep admiration as you watch a stunning woman that lost all her hair to an autoimmune disease exude a vibrancy for life that reverberates like the strings of a harp.

Yes, God did not just allow her heart to experience brokenness beyond what some will ever face, He also allowed her to lose every strand of hair. What God would allow that?

One that wants to take all that brokenness and heal it. One that wants to take all the loss and redeem it. One that wants her to experience love, joy, and life in a way she never could have found by herself. One that wants to mark her for HIM, so that she undeniably shines with a light that this world cannot explain away.

That is my younger sister. Praise be to God.

#praise #pain #growing