A lot of us are thinking Christmas won't be the same this year. Some of us are feeling our necks and shoulders tightening as each day goes on.
Why not take a break you'll remember? Sit for a moment and catch the sheer joy of these children--and adults--as you watch and listen to this YouTube of some years ago.
First, a bit of background
Their story began when James Barthelman and his wife moved from Nebraska to the tiny village of Quinhagak, Alaska. This (mostly) Yup'ik Eskimo village is 400 miles west of Anchorage and has no roads to the outside world. Its population numbered 699 residents at the last census.
The Barthelmans came with a purpose as James would be teaching in the village school, Kuinerramiut Elitnarviat School.
During the school year he and his fifth-graders came up with making this YouTube video as a school computer project that would involve both children and villagers. Barthelman filmed it, intending that this YouTube would go only to other Yup'ik villages in the area.
Since then well over 1.8 million people have viewed this lively performance, all of it synced with the Robert Shaw Chorale recording of the "Hallelujah" chorus from Handel's Messiah.
This one teacher in one small school never imagined how many people would be entranced by this video.
It's a common question, what can one person do?
A lot, as it turns out.
Let's go back to the story of how what we know as Messiah came to be. It is the year 1741 and George Frideric Handel lives in London. He's feeling depressed, with some cause. A stroke left him with blurred vision and his financial situation is shaky.
Then Charles Jennens brings him a new libretto for an opera and asks Handel to compose music to go with it. Handel reads it and inspiration fills him.
One account said Handel felt God gave him the music and he could scarcely write the notes down fast enough.
Over the next 24 days he stays in the front room of his home and composes the musical score for Messiah for both choir and orchestra.
He works tirelessly day and night, often forgetting to eat the meals left for him on a tray outside his door. Nights he writes by lamplight and candle-light.
Handel composes and orchestrates every harmony, every note for all choir parts and for every instrument in an orchestra. True to the time, he relied on his trusty quill pen and a bottle of ink.
Handel never could have foreseen how his music would endure.
Consider this another reminder what God can do with the work of one individual
Although Handel composed many other musical works, only his "Hallelujah" chorus is sung and hummed all over the world. Every Christmas season choruses and choirs in huge cities and in tiny villages on every continent perform his Messiah.
There's a lesson here for you and me
As individuals and as moms and dads we cannot know what God will do with our work. Or the work of our children.
I can't help thinking of this Bible verse.
For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. --Ephesians 2:10 NIV
That verse wasn't aimed only at Handel and other famous people. It speaks to you and me, too.
Think you're on a treadmill and going nowhere?
Perhaps today you question the value of your life. Maybe you're facing your first Christmas alone after losing a loved one.
Or maybe you're a mom and your family most often notices what you do when you don't do it. Choose to put a positive spin on that. Being taken for granted also means your loved ones know they can count on you.
What's more, the family life you create and the love you pour into your days will live on in your children.
Joy comes from giving ourselves fully, knowing that what we do matters, whether we see the end result or not.
God is faithful. What we do in love will live on
Believe it. Let that truth put fresh energy in your tired body.
Someone needs us, needs our kind words, needs our encouragement. These are gifts, too, even when we don't realize it and even when the other person may seem to pay no attention.
This Christ-mas season let's put aside our usual thoughts of hurry and pressure and focus instead on the greatest Gift.
For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life. --John 3:16 ESV
Hallelujah!
Lenore
