Month: March 2021

Song

On By skrosenfeldLeave a comment

I started this little project by accident.

A few days before Lent, the church published a list of photo prompts – one for every day between Ash Wednesday and Easter. I was excited about it – photo projects are kind of a guilty pleasure of mine – and planned to participate exactly as described:

“Post a picture on Facebook or Instagram that shows how you perceive each word, no explanation required.”

But the first prompt was “Ashes”. And the first thing that came to mind for me to capture and post really felt like it required some context.

The next day the prompt was “Relationship”, and a similar thing happened. After I had written a response to 3 or 4 days worth of words…I started wondering if I could keep it going. So often when I write I wait for months while the words form on my heart, and only put them to “paper” when they have overflowed. I thought it might be interesting to challenge myself with a Lenten discipline of writing something every day; maybe even something spiritual every day.

So I decided to try. In my head, that meant 40 posts in 40 days.

The timing was an issue of course – this has been without a doubt the busiest Lenten season that I can remember. These are always particularly busy times for our family, but this year with the added tasks associated with content creation and production for virtual worship – it has been unlike anything I have ever experienced.

I will never forget it. I will always be grateful. I will be so happy when it is over.

All of that is true at the same time; it makes about as much sense as love ever does.

It is funny that the prompt today happens to be song because – for the love of music and worship – I need to take a step back from these posts as we go into Holy Week. At first I was feeling pretty defeated at that prospect, and then I realized that because the photo challenge didn’t take breaks on Sunday – this post right here (such that it is) is actually my 40th post. I am hoping to post again as we get to the end of the week, but for now – the music needs my attention.

Because our calling is to share the song with you. And we just can’t wait. ❤️

Season

On By skrosenfeldLeave a comment

On Friday morning I stepped outside to put some things into the recycling bin. This is something I do nearly every morning and regardless of the weather I usually go out in about the same attire – its just a few steps across the deck and it isn’t usually worth more than a flip flop’s worth of preparation.

I braced myself for a blast of chilly air and opened the door – as it turned out, it was about 65 degrees outside. It felt like I stepped out of my winter expectations right into the reality of spring. It was hard to go back inside, even with the promise of coffee!

A few minutes later, as I was texting with my friend, I said that didn’t think I could ever live some place that didn’t experience all 4 seasons; I just love the promise of a new thing always just around the corner. Every season has its wonders; miracles and metaphors. In the Spring we see rebirth, and in the Fall we see the beauty in letting go. The Summer is full of color and light, while Winter is full of mystery and potential.

Every season has its responsibilities; every season has its rest.

I took the above picture in November of 2019 after spending an afternoon cleaning up the wilted remains of summer and planting some bulbs to winter over for the spring. As I looked down with pride at what looked on the surface to be containers of dirt, a thought came to mind and I posted the image with this caption:

“It is amazing to me how different a successful day of gardening looks in the spring verses how it looks in the fall. A solid reminder, really, that success isn’t always in bloom.”

Just as the seasons we experience here on Earth come with different expectations for climate and growth; the seasons we pass through in our lives are no different. You would not expect a flower to bloom in the winter; you wouldn’t think that if it was just a little more committed – if it worked just a little bit harder – it could grow up through the frozen ground.

And yet, in the winter seasons of our lives, we expect so much more of ourselves than we do of the flower. We never allow ourselves rest; we refuse to accept a season of growth if it looks like relative dormancy on the surface.

But the thing is – we aren’t created to live in perpetual harvest. Your time spent planted in the rich soil of last season’s lessons is not failure. You need that darkness to see the spark of a new thing.

Back in November of 2019 there was more moving under the soil than would meet the eye. I was working in my yard that day because I was trying to get my head right after a particularly difficult weekend…and yet that season was actually the calm before the storm. The following winter was one of heartbreak and exhaustion, and I don’t think I need to tell you how the spring shaped up.

I think I do need to tell you that right before Easter, when it was time to produce and film music for Holy Week in my living room, those fall bulbs yielded spring tulips and hyacinths, right on time.

Struggle

On By skrosenfeldLeave a comment

I took this picture yesterday afternoon while we sat in the waiting room of our pediatricians. Danny was nervous – any trip to the doctor could result in a flu shot (in his mind), so he usually has a lot more at stake emotionally than physically.

Fortunately he did not get a shot of any kind; just a Strep test and a Covid test (which were both negative.)

We have been passing a cold around since last Friday morning when Willis woke up with it. I don’t know exactly how one gets a cold in “these unprecedented times” but I am chalking it up to 3 of us being out in the world again with more people than we’ve been with in over a year. Regardless of how we inherited it, its just a cold and normally it would be no big deal.

But a cold in the time of Covid is no small thing. It means missed school for the entire household, different lengthy “isolation” periods based on when various symptoms show up or doctors’ appointments and Covid tests for anyone who so much as sniffles (which is what we did and again, I must emphasize, they were all negative).

It is also nearing the end of the quarter, a quarter filled with extraordinary changes and new expectations. And here, in these last days of catching up and testing, everyone is home. My bedroom is a high school choir room again. Danny – as a middle school student – has switched back to being a distance learner for the week but hybrid elementary is an all or nothing game. If Ezra doesn’t go to school on his days, then he is asynchronous full time.

In the grand scheme of struggles in the world right now, I know this ain’t much. But, a glass of water doesn’t have to be overflowing to feel heavy if you carry it around long enough. There is more value in acknowledging that something has been hard for you than in berating yourself for struggling because you know people who have had it worse.

All this to say, the Rosenfeld household will continue our yearly tradition of crashing into Spring Break/Holy Week without the landing gear fully extended.

And that is ok. These are the seasons of miracles, and one recovered sniffle at a time we will get back in the air.

I fell down a little bit of a praise music rabbit hole this morning, and found myself listening to this message. If you are feeling a struggle right now, you might want to listen too. You won’t be disappointed. ❤

Friendship

On By skrosenfeldLeave a comment

This grainy and slightly blurry picture – taken quickly from a distance so as not to ruin the moment – is one of my all time favorites. Buddies, headed off to Sunday school back in the early days of 2016.

By the end of the year, this entire picture would look very different. The most consistent part of life is change, after all, and things moved in some really exciting ways for our friends that year.

We are still in touch, of course, but without the guaranteed weekly gathering of church and rehearsals, and the added strain of distance, it is considerably more difficult.

They are still some of our favorite people on Earth, and that season of church – a time when our kids were learning so much about church, and our church was learning so much about how to minister to them – is a time I always think back on with immense gratitude and love.

This particular herd of kids made our 11:00 contemporary worship service a festival. They sang, they danced, they played air instruments. They gave each other raucous, full body hugs as “hellos” and walked arm in arm to Sunday school.

I always worried about it; with a good chunk of the parents up in the worship area in the band, it left just a few (saintly!) adults in the pews who did the Lord’s work on the impossible job of reigning them in.

But in all of the months that circus was in town, I never received any complaints. In fact, I actually received notes from a number of people telling me how wonderful it was to watch their celebration. Over time I started to relax, stopped frantically signing with Danny during the Lords Prayer to PLEEEAAASE sit down, and just allowed myself to be fully present in a time I knew had come to pass – not to stay.

When our friends moved away, I was terrified that Danny’s love for church – and for the God we came there to praise – would fall away. It wasn’t the first time that some people he had grown especially attached to had left, and I was afraid that maybe we were reaching the limits of what his little heart could recover from.

But sure enough, after a period of grief, a new season began. He didn’t dance in worship anymore, but he taught himself media shout and memorized the words and backgrounds to every song we sang. He played drums for a children’s pageant. He got to know the youth group by coming to musical rehearsals and singing and dancing with them after practice. He met his beloved Miss Rachel and her boy, a relationship I will always thank God for because of the tremendously lucky circumstances that brought her into our life.

Friendships are so incredibly powerful; even if the most significant season of a relationship seems to have passed, do not make the mistake of writing it off. Love is not something that runs dry; how it nourishes you from year to year may change but you have grown to who you are from that current flowing over your roots.

Danny was planted in the faith because of that season and has grown up to bloom in this one. He may go on to bear fruit in the next; we simply can’t know.

But of this I am certain: Jesus loves him. This he knows.

But it wasn’t the Bible that “told him so”; it was his friends, showing him so.