by Steve Rees, Ret. RN, Harpist
Life’s Challenges
Compose Our Unique Song
Recently, my wife and I visited some friends to catch up on what had been going on in their lives and ours. The woman we visited was quite debilitated from a fall, even though enough time had passed for her bones to heal. This required the use of crutches and living with limited mobility.
During our visit, she questioned, “Why is this happening to me?” As we carried on our conversation, I suggested that maybe there was something deeper going on in her life which would end up producing a character trait she would learn to appreciate. Or possibly, this was happening in order to bring her to a level of maturity that would not be attainable through any other pathway.
I was speaking out of personal experience since I had been through the fire on several fronts: financial, health, and even in relationships. Each time I questioned “why,” and never was it any fun. But now looking back, I can say without hesitation that I would not change a thing. The character and maturity that I realized would never have been achieved without these challenges.
In her article titled, King David’s Heart, Batya Burd, makes a thought-provoking statement, " Life's difficult challanges are not interruptions. The are what we need to compose Our Unique song."
Her phrase, “Compose our Unique song” jumped out at me since music is a keen interest in my life.
I would like to quote several thoughts she shared through her article as I believe she captures the essence of what my experience discovered. She uses the life of King David which really interests me since I have spent a lot of time transcribing his Psalms into the music I record with the harp. Some of my YouTube videos are focused on the Psalms of David.
I found it refreshing to consider the challenges that David went through, because they proved to be the fire that distilled his experiences into the incredible Psalms that we find so inspiring today.
Through it all he remained our hero, fought and won many battles on behalf of Israel, and had his son Solomon build the Temple of Jerusalem. But the depth and heart of David remains most revealed in his poetry-turned-prayers called Psalms.
In the Psalms, King David moves me because of the intensity of his experience of life, his honesty, candidness, rawness, and courage to expose his frailties and fears. Because of his humility and yearning to be closer to his Creator in both light and dark times, he was not embarrassed to be him.
Nor, was he shy about his feelings. He exposed himself and then gave it all back to God. Nothing he felt or experienced was wasted. All was used to connect back to his Creator. All was sanctified through his actions.”