Music for God

by Kathy Engleman

Those of you who have prayed with me, or for me, know that I have bipolar disorder and have been in a moderate/severe depression for over a year now, since well before I started attending Good Sam in November 2010. My relationship with God and my relationship with Good Sam have been the most powerful healing I have experienced since being diagnosed bipolar, and the source of many spiritual gifts. Sometimes I come to Good Sam just to be someplace that feels safe and healing when I am in moments of deepest despair. If the doors are unlocked, I am there.

And out of one of those moments of despair came an amazing gift that has brightened my life. You see, there was an evening when I decided to eavesdrop on a bell choir rehearsal, partly because I have a musical background and was curious, but mostly because I was in such pain and turmoil that I needed to be someplace around people where I could feel the love of God. So I slunk into the rehearsal and asked if I could just listen, and that’s what I did. I listened. So the next week, once again I came slinking into bell choir rehearsal, but this time I found myself looking over someone’s shoulder at the music, wondering what the score looked like, and paying attention to how everyone rang their bells (flick of the wrist? Sweeping arc?). 

The following week no one seemed surprised to see me, and when one of the players had too many bells and couldn’t quite manage to juggle them all, I quietly volunteered, “I could play F.” Well! Immediately room was made for me at the table and I found myself holding a rather large bell and practiced the ringing motion that was being demonstrated for me. It was harder than it looked! Then we just started playing, and I did my best to keep up. 

It was terrifying, I was terrible, I felt completely out of my league and my pianist background seemed so irrelevant to the skills required to ring… and I couldn’t get enough! I asked if I could bring the music home with me and practice, and before I knew it I was swinging ketchup bottles around at the dining room table, marking up my score in pencil (sorry, Jo Ann), and filling my home with silent music. My days of drudgery and despair were brightened by intervals of practicing bells, and as the piece came together and I could actually play it, it became even more wonderful and magical to play. And knowing it was for the glory of God, knowing that I would be playing during a church service, knowing that I would be rehearsing with a group of people with whom I would first hold hands and pray, made me feel part of something large and expansive and glorious. 

I was enjoying practicing with ketchup bottles so much I decided I wanted to make some music I could hear, so I spent an entire day fishing our old electric piano out of the junk closet, getting a table cleared off and ready to receive it, finding the gear to plug it in and get a sound out of it, and finding my stacks of dusty piano music. I was in a single-minded frenzy and the level of focus, intensity and activity was in startling contrast to the lethergy of my unremitting depression. I found some piano pieces that I had once played flawlessly perhaps 25 years earlier, and dusted them off and tried them on. Rusty, many missed notes, but infinitely satisfying and addictive. 

Now, between the piano and the bells, music filled my mind, my home, my world. Suddenly the drudgery of my life (laundry, dishes, tidying) got pushed aside because I was too busy making music to hang pants; a marked improvement over the despair that led to the same result. Eventually it started to seem possible to fold laundry or prepare a simple meal. Things started looking more joyful in general. I had a reason to get out of bed in the morning.

My kids got into the swing of it all – Jeffrey insisted on a few piano lessons and some rhythm lessons on the drum; my daughter Grace began teaching herself the piano, with just a few questions for me, then when she decided to join the bell choir with me, I taught her how to read music – quite a crash course, and she’s doing amazingly well. So music is moving through our house like an unstoppable energy. It hasn’t cured my depression, but it’s helped a tremendous amount.

And the thing that is the most wondrous is that this beautiful gift of music in my life is a gift that springs directly from God, and from my depression. It is only because I was in the darkest despair that I darkened the door of that practice room – I would never have joined the bell choir if I was in my “right” mind, because I don’t have time to be on a bell choir – I’m too busy raising my family. The weekly practice is too much time away from husband and kids. When would I practice? No time. No, I needed a giant celestial shove to show me that, yes, I did have time to play music, just like I have time to breathe. It has to fit in, because without it, life isn’t complete. So I thank my depression, and I thank God, for this gift.

I have wondered many times whether my depression comes from God, and I don’t have an answer. Sometimes I think that God has given me this illness because it is the only way for me to receive the great gifts that He has in store for me. Often I hate my illness. But without it I would be without many of the gifts that define my life and make me who I am. Music is only one of these gifts. Would I rather be free of the illness but part with the gifts? Unknowingly? Or would I rather have both? So often as I emerge from deepest darkness I am handed a gift that leaves me in wonder, I say to myself, Yes, that gift was worth that pain. Ten times over. I thank God for my pain and I thank God for my gifts. And if you happen to notice me ringing bells at worship on the first Sunday of the month, know that I wouldn’t trade my depression for a life free of music, ever. And I think God knows that about me. 

Have you ever found gifts from God in the most unlikely places?