[ Testimony ] The Lord works in mysterious ways, and now you love Mahler: A testimony, as promised

[StAgnes]

As I promised earlier, here is the first part of my testimony. I apologize for any typing or spelling errors. The title will become evident in later portions.


This story is really more of an autobiography than it is a testimony, but it is ultimately a story of God's great Love. I cannot say it is a more amazing story than anyone else's, or that what I have to say is in any way profound. I am, after all, just a simple girl with a rather simple life. God didn't save me from some drug addiction or from a life of promiscuity. My story is not a tale of an extreme magical conversion; there are no moments of complete revelation. It is a long story, but I cannot pretend it is a jaw-dropping one. It is merely the story of an ordinary violinist with extraordinary dreams, and a far more extraordinary God.

Like most people who have the privilege of making it to the grand age of 19, I was born. In the process of giving me life, my mother came very close to losing her own. For whatever reason, one by one her organs were ceasing their function, and at one point she was actually dead. During that moment, she claims to have had what is commonly termed a "near death experience", she saw the ever famous "light at the end of the tunnel" accompanied by a complete, indescribable peace, and even (so she claims) spoke to someone who she is almost certain was Jesus. Though she never saw him, she heard his voice, and he told her that she could come with him---that she could have that peace---but remembering her brand new baby girl and her husband, she said "No, Lord I love you, but I must stay to take care of my family", and shortly after that she woke up, and gradually began to heal. She says it was the hardest decision she's ever made because the peace she felt was the warmest, most pleasant feeling, and that nothing has ever compared to the way she felt that night. (Trust me, this is important to the story).

My early childhood was fairly normal, nothing out of the ordinary. When I started school, I was one of the nerdiest little girls you could probably ever find---and probably one of the strangest---I had a deep love of books, talking to adults, and an even deeper love for rocks and fossils. I also had several very large fears. One was a very large fear of drugs---an enormous concern for the people who fell into the use of them, really---and the more selfish fear of thunderstorms. Do to my love of rocks and fossils, my ultimate ambition was to be either a geologist or a paleontologist---two words which my classmates could hardly pronounce, let alone understand. I was a nerd through and through, both a math whiz and an excellent reader; I read most of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes when I was still in second grade, and my math homework was always a topic of "conversation" between my parents and I, "Why," I protested, "do I have to keep doing math like this, when it's so easy for me? I want something harder!" I was a very smart little girl, and my dad says, very close to, if not completely, a genius. I'm not saying that because I'm proud of it, nor am I saying it to brag, I am only listing it as a fact in this story. It is important because it gives you an image of my starting point.
The summer after 1st grade, my family took a vacation to Florida. During that vacation there was a hurricane off the coast---it never hit Florida, but for a day or so, it made the sky to the west very, very dark. My family went to the beach that afternoon, and I remember refusing to get out of the car with them. The storm was so far away it never could have caused us any harm, but I was scared to death. My dad stayed behind with me, and during that time, while the rest of my family was off hunting seashells, he and I had a very long conversation about fear, and life, and especially about God. I told my dad that I wished I'd never been born, because then I wouldn't know what it was like to be afraid of something. It is an event I remember, because even then it was helping me shape my ideas about God, "If God really loved me, " I said, very un-like a seven-year-old, "then he wouldn't have made me, or at least, he wouldn't let me be so afraid." I was mad at God far more than I was afraid of that storm.
I had several other cases where I became extremely angry at God, once I prayed for a Unicorn---needless to say, my prayer was left unanswered. I remember asking God for all kinds of strange things, none of which would have done me or anyone else any good, but at least it lead me to a very consistent prayer-life. Even in my silly childish anger, I would go back to ask God's forgiveness, and to reason out the fact that, obviously if He didn't give me what I wanted, there was a good reason---I still kept praying for Unicorns for a long time though.
When I began 4th grade, the school started an advance placement program in math---something I eagerly took advantage of. It was the best year I'd had until that point, and the first year I'd ever made any lasting friendships. It was also a year when every student had to pick out a different instrument to play. I came very close to playing the cello, but after the orchestra teacher played her violin for us, I fell in love with it---whatever the reason (perhaps the hand of God) I wanted more than anything to be a fiddle player. Little did I know how much that decision would change my life---and how it would ultimately save it.

 

[StAgnes]

Part 2

May 10th, 2004 is a day I will never forget as long as I live. It was the end of the fourth grade school year, just two and a half weeks after my 10th birthday. That year had been a good one, I'd made several very close friends, I was in an advanced math class, and I had just started playing the violin. In fact, not more than a week earlier I had played in my very first concert with my other classmates---"Heart and Soul" and "Barnyard Bash" if I remember correctly, were the names of the pieces on the program. I wore a bright purple dress and a necklace of my mother's.

Though, that day, on the 10th of May, music was very far from my mind. It started out as a normal enough day, a tad on the warm side (scheduled to hit about 90.F). I was wearing a yellow shirt with puppies on it ( a shirt which I was superstitiously afraid of wearing ever again). It was a half day at school, so my sister and I got off the bus at around noon. Because it was early, and especially hot, she and I decided to take a swim in our pool (we had both been on a swim team since starting school, and naturally loved swimming). I put on my purple bathing suit, and jumped joyfully in the water.
When we were done swimming we came inside to eat a snack before swim practice---white New York cheddar cheese and crackers for me, and Colby Jack for my sister. I finished my snack, but I remember looking on at my sister's and thinking that it made me unusually nauseous. After watching a bit of television, my mom piled us into our family van, still wearing our bathing suits, after all, it was only a 15 minute drive to practice, and we were going to be getting in a pool there anyway. Why put on clothes for that?

Very quickly into the car-ride, my head started aching. I'd had a bit of a headache earlier in the day, but thought nothing of it. But that car-ride turned into the longest 15 minutes of my life. My head pounded more and more, I had trouble staying awake. I grew incredibly nauseous. The pain in my head was screaming, and the closer we got to the pool, the worse it became. I could tell I had a fever, and I must have looked like hell frozen over, but never having liked being ill, I was too afraid to tell my mom, so I just sat there, falling in and out of sleep (something that can happen very rapidly to 10-year-old).
Until we pulled into the parking lot, I was able to convince myself that it would all just go away, but just as we were pulling into the parking space, I knew beyond any doubt I was going to be sick. I quietly told my mom, and she grabbed a random sack that had been laying on the floor...and well...pardon the graphic detail of it all, but I promptly "lost-my cookies". My mom quickly rushed my sister into the pool (so she wouldn't miss practice) and ran out to me, to take me home.

At the time of course, it was logically assumed that all I had was the flu, and that like most average children, I would be well within a day or so, and everything would be fine, but that, as you will soon see, was not the case.
Sometimes I like to imagine what my life would be like if Monday, May 10th, 2004 had never happened. If somehow I'd just skipped that day and life had continued as normal, but the truth is, that day changed my life so completely, I can't even imagine life apart from it---without that day, my life as I know it would simply not exist.

 

[StAgnes]

No more rambling until tomorrow, gotta sleep sometime, but here is part 3. Feel free to comment or anything (especially if you find a misspelled word or something, I tend to be a bit OCD about that kind of thing )

For two more days I was very ill, a high fever, severe stomach pains, a continuous headache, and then on Thursday evening I made a very rapid (seeming) recovery. I ate dinner as usual, and even went swimming with my sister in our pool. On Friday I went to school, everything seemed to go back to normal. I had a little less energy than was usual, but overall everything seemed fine.

And then it happened. Gradually, I began to change. I became more and more tired. I stopped reading books, all I wanted to do was sleep. I had headaches, I couldn't focus. My heart would race, I'd come dangerously close to passing out. Gradually my math skills diminished. I became quiet, reserved---very opposite of the young nerd who enjoyed loud conversation with adults. I was frequently nauseous, and it would often feel like someone had dropped a ten thousand ton weight on my chest and was pressing me down with it. I could hardly swim a lap across the pool, and when I did it left me gasping and hungry for air. My spelling ability left me; I lost a good deal of my vocabulary, I couldn't do simple arithmetic, and life was miserable in every way. The only two things in which I found any pleasure, indeed, the only two things I could really manage to do at all were practicing my violin, and drawing pictures. For whatever reason, it seemed that whatever had caused all of these strange symptoms had also caused me to love music and art. It was a sort of therapy---an escape from the realities of pain, into a world of beauty.

That fall I started 5th grade---what can only be called one of the worst periods of my short life.

Over the summer my symptoms had grown worse, and in the fall, after a long string of inconclusive doctor visits, my parents decided to take me to Riley Children's Hospital in Indianapolis, Indiana. There, by some odd chance, one of the cardiologists happened to spot a heart murmur in my EKG, a long QT ( it was a step in the right direction, but not a complete solution to the problem, it explained the chest pains, and breathlessness, but not the cause, nor the apparent brain damage) Even with at least somewhat of diagnosis, my fifth-grade teacher would simply not accept the fact that I had a physical health condition. I would have trouble paying attention in class, or fail to complete a math or writing assignment (something I could genuinely no longer do) and she would automatically assume that my problem was a mental one---essentially that it was a behavior problem, and that I needed to see a therapist. It doesn't bother me that she assumed that, but honestly, her treatment of me was far from kind. In February of that school year, my parents decided to pull me from the school to homeschool me. That last day of school is another one I'll never forget, especially my teacher's words when I asked if I could go to the nurse ( half an hour before school let out) to get pain medication for the excruciating headache I had. "No," she said, in a very unkind manner, "sit down and stop making excuses!" Those words have haunted me since that day---another event that has shaped my life. I hear them often, even now. Sometimes they make me feel like my life is just a string of excuses for not being good enough, for not following all the rules. "Stop making excuses" echoes in my mind, even to this day, and I can see it as clearly as if it were happening right before me.

 

[StAgnes]

So my parents pulled me out of school in February of 2005.

For much of the rest of that school year they let me do pretty much what I wanted, with a few attempts at lessons thrown in. It lead to a great outburst of creativity on my part. My main focus was on art at the time, and eventually, as my language arts skills had gradually returned, on writing. It was around this time that I watched my first Lord of the Rings movie---The Fellowship of the Ring, and I quickly became enthralled with it. Both with the story, and the incredible imagery. Because of this fascination I became very interested in the work of both John Howe and Alan Lee (illustrators with a strong apprehension for the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, for those who might not know). My ultimate desire at that point was to be an author and an illustrator, I am ashamed to admit, merely because of the glamour I believed it afforded. I even started writing a book, around my 11th birthday, with the hope that I would be one of the world's youngest published authors. It did not happen, as you may have guessed.

For my 12th birthday, my parents gifted me with a round of oil painting classes at a local art gallery. At that first class I remember my absolute excitement as I drew my brush across the canvas for the first time. A surge of energy ran through me. I was painting! It wasn't just children's watercolours anymore, it was the real thing! And due to the gallery's policy, I was actually able to continue taking classes for a long time (actually until I believed my skills had surpassed those of the class).

While through this time my main focus was on art and writing, I never completely abandoned my love of music. I continued to play the violin, and remained in the school's orchestra program, even though I was still being homeschooled. At the time, I was still a rather dreadful violinist, but it was still something I enjoyed doing, at it offered me a reprieve from the medical tests and treatments.

Around the time of my 15th birthday, I began listening to more and more music---I think it was this birthday on which my parents gave me an mp3 player. Up until that point I'd done most of my music listening with a very old tape player, playing my parent's old tapes over and over again. That little mp3 player was one of the greatest gifts, because it opened up a whole new world to me, musically speaking. The first music I downloaded---the soundtrack for The Lord of the Rings, of course. Several months later, I remember quite vividly, lying on my bed, listening to that music, crying out to God, begging Him, Let me be a part of something this beautiful! Oh God, somehow, some way, let me either play or write music this beautiful! I want to give the world a beauty like this, because this world is so dark, and so ugly sometimes...God....just....please whatever you do, let me be a part of something this beautiful!"

From that moment on, my life was almost completely devoted to some pursuit of music. I practiced all of that summer, just playing the same old songs, no one to teach me, but by that fall I'd moved from second to last chair, all the way up to second chair in our high school orchestra (remember, I was still taking the class even though I wasn't going to school there). I played at a regional music competition that year, and during that competition, the high school orchestra director and I had a conversation about violin repertoire (she was a violinist herself). During that conversation, I mentioned wanting more than anything to play the Tchaiovsky violin concerto, after which she exclaimed, "Oh! You want to play that? I can't even play that!" And there our conversation ended.

In May of 2010 I started taking private violin lessons from a woman in our local symphony, and by the next fall I'd auditioned for, and been accepted into the youth symphony there.

The day before our first youth symphony rehearsal, all of the YS students had been invited to a dress rehearsal where the guest artist (Gil Shaham) would be rehearsing the Barber violin concerto with the rest of the orchestra. After the rehearsal, we were given the privilege of speaking to Mr. Shaham, and to ask him questions. Very distinctly, I remember the question of one girl, a blond, about my age, sitting off to my right.

"What is your favourite violin concerto to play?" she asked.

He replied, "I'm not sure, I love them all so much, which is your favourite?"

"I'm working on the Tchaikovsky..."

That was all I needed to hear. A girl, about my age, and here she was playing a violin concerto one of my own teachers confessed she couldn't play. It scared me half out of my mind. What if they're all that much better than me? What am I going to do tomorrow! I'm not going to survive that rehearsal!

That next day, I was one of the first to arrive at our rehearsal. Shortly after, in walked the blond girl from the day before. She sat down in the first chair. She's concertmaster---at least that means she's probably better than the rest of us, maybe this won't be too bad.

When they took attendance that afternoon, we were all to say our name and the name of the school we attended. The blond girl's name was Grace* and she was also homeschooled. After rehearsal had ended, she introduced herself to me, and that introduction was the beginning of a friendship. Over the course of that year we became rather good friends, and it was to my dissapointment that I learned it would be her last year in the youth symphony. At the awards banquet that year, I honestly believed it would be the last time I would ever see her again, but while we were standing in line for the dinner buffet, my parents and her's started talking about summer plans and camps, and her mom briefly mentioned a performing arts festival (a Christian performing arts festival) called MWF**, that actually happend to be about 30 minutes from my home. My plans for the summer had already been made however, and I really thought nothing more about it until later that year.

In September I auditioned for a local community orchestra...and to my utter surprise who should accidentally walk in on my audition but Grace! It caught both of us completely off guard.
To my joy, I learned that she was playing for that orchestra, and that I would again be seeing her every week.

*that wasn't really her name, but from now on, any names involved will be changed, just so you know.
**name abbreviated, a bit of googling should turn it up, but I'm not sure any of you would see any need to figure out what it stands for

 

[Angel]

Hello StAgnes!

Your testimony fascinates me- quite interesting!

I look forward to hearing more!

 

[StAgnes]

Thank you Angel, it will be a bit before I get more posted, but hopefully soon

 

[GrannyJ]

Please keep writing; I want to know the rest of the story!