Her Mighty Fortress

I slid into the church pew next to my two brothers and my dad, my husband on my left. A group of senior saints, finishing up a monthly luncheon, made their way into the sanctuary. My mom’s Bible study ladies clustered in neighboring rows, and a few of our family’s local grandchildren took the front row.

We had all come to hear my mom, Anna, play.

Ever one to eschew the spotlight, she had only reluctantly agreed to furnish the program for the senior luncheon. In her eighties, she still gets nervous before she plays on Sundays. But she’s not new to the piano or organ.

Some of my childhood memories involve army-crawling under the church pews with my brothers while Mama practiced for Sunday. And hiding upstairs in the organ chamber to spy on weddings she played for. Then there was the time I finished my gum during the offertory. Knowing the error of putting it in an improper place, I did what any conscientious but perplexed firstborn would do—tried to hand it to her. Except her hands were busy. I can still see her forcefully whispering to put. it. down. next to the organ’s power switch and sit down. She never missed a beat.

It always amazed me that she could play notes with her hands and feet at the same time.

Today she opened up the stops of her church’s massive pipe organ and began to share her praise to a God she has loved for a long time.

And as she moved from organ to piano, from one favorite hymn to another, I reflected on her journey, mine, the playful overlays, and the faithful God in every generation.

When she got to “Amazing Grace,” I mentally left First Church and returned to the family living room scene five years ago. A snapped tendon in her thumb had left it mostly unusable. Certainly for playing octaves.

She worked around it somewhat to play with nine fingers at home, but she had closed her choir book.

In a noteworthy example of faith and forward motion, she decided that if she couldn’t do what she had done all her life, God must want her to do something else. So she started leading Bible studies. Bible studies for friends. Bible studies for high school classmates still in touch 65 years later. Bible studies for fellow church musicians. Bible studies for women who hadn’t studied the Bible before.

Hence, the rows of ladies at today’s event. I want to be starting new things still when I’m in my 70s and 80s! But I digress.

In the family living room five years ago, she assembled all three generations of us to share a story. She had so accepted this new assignment from God that she didn’t think much anymore about not being able to play the piano. She just moved on. Not even a subject of prayer.

She looked down at her hands one day and just happened to notice they were symmetrical again.

She held them up for the family to see.

Then she turned her legs to the other side of the bench and began to play “Amazing Grace”—with octaves—while we all sat dumbfounded and wept with praise.

He had healed her, quietly, without even being asked.

I mentally returned to today’s program. She was playing “It Is Well.” And the folks behind me couldn’t help but sing along softly.

She had been trained in classical music from first grade through college but had a love for the hymnbook before she even knew God personally. Oh, the God who Plans Ahead is astounding in His execution of a lifestory.

She told the audience she wanted to share a couple hymns Bach composed, in a setting of Chopin’s “Prelude C Minor.” Although Bach was himself a church organist, she didn’t know Chopin’s church affiliation. So, she insisted, this was his lucky day.

While Chopin and Bach traded themes and my mind rehearsed the lyrics of “O Sacred Head Now Wounded,” I could almost smell a casserole baking in my childhood kitchen for the third day this week. One piano student after another played five-finger patterns on the other side of the wall from my bedroom. While I did my homework, my mom was instructing, counseling, and motivating scores of kids to use the abilities God gave them.

My mom wasn’t just a piano teacher. She was also one of the first environmentalists. Crickets in the hallway were not to be smashed; they were to be relocated outside where they’d be much happier. Chickens had been known to walk in through the door if some student didn’t close it all the way.

And sure enough, when she came today to “How Great Thou Art,” she had woven a PowerPoint of nature scenes to accompany her music and make it come even more alive.

She finished her program on the organ bench with the hymn that started it all.

As a sixteen-year-old, she had gone to the old Marion Theater one Saturday for a movie. In those days, the pre-show entertainment involved news reels. Much more interesting than popcorn ads.

On this day, the news reel featured post–World War II Europe. A pipe organ from a cathedral swelled with “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.”

Anna would not hear the gospel clearly articulated for several more years. But electricity surged through her spirit as she heard the European organ. She knew she had to play. She biked home to a mother who agreed to look for an organ teacher, and the rest was history.

A carefully crafted history by a sovereign God who understood what He had put within her even before she knew His name. A history of His great faithfulness. A history of hiding her soul in the cleft of the Rock, bridging her troubled waters, and giving her hope of beholding Him after spending this lifetime in His tender shepherd-care. A history of faith in her Mighty Fortress.

Mama, I’m sure your King delighted in your piano octaves and full-open organ today since you praised Him just the way He made you to do it. Thank you for blessing my life with your music and your passion.