About a week after election day, the weather in Michigan was like early spring, sunny with temperatures sometimes over 70 degrees. During my first year as an international student in Michigan in 1997, I experienced this strange weather in early November. One of my friends told me it's called "Indian Summer."  I thought this was God's great gift at the beginning of a harsh and gloomy winter in Michigan.  

I hope we can have this kind of relief moment when encounter difficult times in our lives to give us the strength to overcome trials. Our Celebration Ringers and I enjoyed rehearsals and played for services in October and early November with permission from the re-opening task force until we were recommended not to do so again because of the second wave of the COVID- 19 crisis.  We had even started rehearsing our musical offerings for the Christmas season. All nine ringers and I were ready to go for it.  But as the scriptures say, we cannot get anything done without God's permission ("A man’s heart plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps." -Proverbs 16:9.)  

It is up to us how we view this situation. Was it just a disappointing event, or a teaching moment for us to experience God's grace? I thank God for the wonderful moments our ringers and I enjoyed fully during a few Thursday evening rehearsals together.  On the first attempted rehearsal day, I had only two people come, but from the next rehearsals, we were in good shape with seven to eight people. Right before I heard the news from the task force, I even had one more ringer joining us to make a perfectly sized group for the pieces for our Christmas services. But even with the situation turned against our plan, the wonderful time of rehearsing and playing we shared together and a great vision of playing successfully during Christmastime were already gracious blessings to us. We enjoyed them and will keep the happy moments in our hearts and minds. 

Now, we need to hold and wait for the time we will enjoy our gatherings and play for the glory of our God and his people again. When?  We don't know. We need to wait patiently until God gives us a green light.  Should we be disappointed or anxious?  I don't think so, unless our God is unhappy and disappointed about this situation, which I strongly doubt.  I believe that everything is under control and planned by God. If everything goes as we plan, and we accomplish all things as we want all the time, there might be nothing we will feel blessed about and give thanks to God for. We might not need God at all then. Real happiness and gratitude are possible only when we recognize that things are not under our control but God's.  

God wants us to do our best in every moment. God will give us more fruitful moments and only he knows the best time for all.  We just need to trust God and follow his guidance. Our church has been blessed by many things we have witnessed during this unprecedented difficult time, including all the musical talents in our church and community. Though we cannot have larger sized musical groups for a while, we still have our musical offerings with individual musical people so that we don't worry about our coming weeks and months. We will move on with trust in God based on our experience of the blessings given by him in the past.