From ruin to elation

Have you ever been in one of those frustrating or disastrous situations when you are certain that nothing good can come of it?

I had such an experience as a junior in high school after playing my viola with a string quartet at an an outdoor wedding. While playing, I had noticed something was wrong with my instrument. Afterwards I asked my orchestra director about it and she told me my viola was ruined. The direct sunlight had melted the glue in the viola and it had developed a “rattle.” As you can imagine, I was crushed.

A short time later, a girl who had played viola next to me in the orchestra moved to another state. Thanks to a generous aunt, she had two extra violas and so as she left, though she did not know of my ruined viola, she gave me one of them and donated the other to the school. And she included the receipt from the original purchase in case I ever wanted to sell it, which revealed that it was worth five times as much as my ruined one. I was shocked and overjoyed by the unexpected — but needed — gift. I am still playing that viola today.

Carried on a “flood of reversal,” our lives are filled with reversals. Have fun looking for such moments and experiences in your own life.

Scripture: Hebrews 10:5-10 (NRSV)

Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, “Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me; ⁶in burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure.

⁷Then I said, ‘See, God, I have come to do your will, O God’ (in the scroll of the book it is written of me).” ⁸When he said above, “You have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings” (these are offered according to the law), ⁹then he added, “See, I have come to do your will.” He abolishes the first in order to establish the second. ¹⁰And it is by God’s will that we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.