My Piece of the Puzzle

Yesterday I told you about working the Waynestock Festival over the weekend...and I told you that Josh Wilson sang...and I told you that his song Before the Morning has been a pivotal one for me.

It started four years ago, when the song was brand new and played often on the radio. It happened to be the same time I was struggling through the devastating loss of love, and everything seemed dark. And it seemed it would always be dark. And in that season, God began the "Six a.m. Serenade" - and Josh's song was a frequent piece of that serenade.

And then the following year, I went on a vacation to Florida, and in that vacation, God taught me some important lessons - including one in which He encouraged me to walk toward the morning.

And then morning actually came. It came in the form of redemptive love named Ryan Shaffer, who asked me out on a date and then asked me out again and eventually proposed to me on live radio and married me on a beach in Florida. He is my morning. He is God's answer to the dark brokenness that was my life.

And then...Ryan sang that song to me. In church. The song that meant everything to me...became the first song he ever sang to me live in public. It was a full circle redemption.

So Saturday evening, as Josh Wilson took the stage in St. Marys, Ohio, and sang that song...and I stood in front of the WBCL tent and whispered the words alongside him, I thought over all those moments. The darkness and tears, the hope of a future, the realization of the future and the full circle redemption.

And I wanted to rush up onto that stage and say JOSH!!!!! Listen to my story! Listen to how your song ministered to me and became my theme for a season and how God has used it - over and over - to be pivotal in the story He's writing for me.

But even as I thought those words, I realized that above my whispers, dozens...hundreds...of other people were singing the same words. Out loud.

Chances are good many of them had a dark season too. And that Josh's song came to them over the waves of the radio...just like it did to me. And it meant something to them just like it meant something to me.

I wanted to rush up onto the stage again, but this time, I wanted to say JOSH!!!!!!!!! Look at this group! Look at all these people who have committed the words of your song to heart. Look at all of them singing alongside you...and know that each one represents a story of how God worked through your song.

All the details are different. Their stories won't match mine. But each of us are pieces in the puzzle of Before the Morning. Each of us together make a sunrise of God's goodness.

Isn't that awesome?

God is so good!!!  And His ways are beautiful.