Ouch, God! That hurts!

My 16-year-old granddaughter Mary Grace plays the guitar for the Youth Ministry meetings, Camp Jesus and Sunday prayer meetings of our covenant community. She shared an insight about learning to play the guitar:

“When I decided I wanted to learn how to play guitar, with some encouragement I remember my Dad saying he was going to teach me the very first cord. He pressed my fingers down very hard. I said, ‘Ouch, Dad, that hurts! I don’t want to anymore.’

“It really hurts badly. But I get the message: ’Let God use you.’ When people say things like that you think, ‘That’s okay; it’s cool,’ except when you actually want God to use you. Then it’s like, ‘Ouch, God, that hurts. You’re stretching me in ways that I don’t want to.’

“But, once you decide to hold your fingers down and make beautiful music, when you decide to let God use you, it hurts, but he plays something so beautiful that you cannot imagine. I’d like to encourage you that if you’re in that tough part where you say, ‘Ouch God! That hurts!’ that something beautiful is about to happen.”

In this video she performs, “In the Arms of an Angel,” with her 13-year-old sister Nancy Rose for a school fundraiser.

In the Arms of the Angel sung by Mary and Nancy

 (© 2013 Nancy H C Ward)