Torches and Batons

Last weekend we hosted my daughter’s ballet company in town for a performance on their spring tour. Finding a venue when everyone was still jittery about Covid had been a little tricky. But my husband did it— The technical institute, formerly the old high school campus, had an auditorium that seated 1,000, and they would allow half capacity.

God is always at work on His variegated levels, only some of which we ever know. This event proved no exception.

A six-year-old received prayer afterwards from one of the ballerinas while the little girl’s dad looked on with sweet tears.

A brand new believer, exuberant in his faith, gave flowers to all the dancers before the show and encouraged them with the overflowing gratitude of his changed heart and his excitement about attending his first ballet.

During the show, the tech in the sound booth asked the tour director what was happening on stage. She queried if he was familiar with the Biblical story of Ruth. When he said he’d never heard of it, she talked about the theme of redemption and explained the gospel to him.

And God graciously met me, too, in His big orchestration.

I had arrived an hour early to help in the lobby. Opening the auditorium doors, I walked seven or eight rows down the center aisle before it hit me like an ocean wave: The Lord is in this place.

I knew the dancers had prayed over this space during their set-up time, as they do at every venue. They had invited the Holy Spirit to fill the room with His presence. He had certainly answered yes.

But there was an added layer for me in encountering this room.

The last time I remembered standing here was 35 years ago. At my high school baccalaureate. It had been an unexpected moment and one of those landmark points.

Knowing how important my faith was to me as a student, the school had invited me to sing during the event. It would be the very last slot in the program and would serve as the benediction. Their one stipulation was that I not perform a song with the name of Jesus in it so as not to offend those of other faiths in attendance.

I chose a song recorded by Steve Green:

The Lord is lifted up/ In majesty and praise/

The earth beholds and bows before/ The wonder of His grace.

I would also sing it in sign language—my limited version of motion and the closest I came to being able to dance in my worship.

It all flowed smoothly that day for my 17-year-old self. I returned to my seat among the graduates and zipped my spacious graduation robe back over my dress. The principal was speaking, presumably to dismiss the convocation.

But he was inviting me back up to the stage.

To give the benediction.

Oh no! That song WAS the benediction.

A couple students murmured around me, in sympathy that I was inadvertently being put on the spot to close in prayer.

Ready or not, the microphone was mine.

I realized immediately that I had been handed a huge gift—the opportunity to offer an unscripted prayer from my heart for hundreds of students I deeply cared about.

I prayed whatever I could think of. That God would protect them and guide them in the years ahead. That He would bless them beyond their greatest hopes. That each one would encounter Him and come to know Him personally some day. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

They applauded. I was mostly relieved that any words had come out of my mouth at all. But wow, He let me worship Him and pray for my people that day.

And now I stood on this holy ground 35 years down the road.

When the lights went down, my husband, whose name I didn’t know 35 years ago, took the microphone to open the evening in prayer.

The ballet was amazing—beautiful, worshipful, creative. And when it ended, my daughter took the microphone to clarify the good news that just as Boaz had done for Ruth, Jesus paid everything we could not, to provide life for us and to bring us into relationship with Himself forever.

The microphone, like a torch, like a baton I had used and deposited on this stage, waited in place all this time to be picked up and carried again. I wondered who may have set it there for me before I used it. And I wondered if any had tapped into it in the meantime to lift Jesus high in this place. And who will follow.

But the deposit stayed intact. The torch-baton waited on that stage. I didn’t even know it. Didn’t see it coming until it happened. But a faithful God remembered and magnified His salvation again.