Thank you all for your nice words.

Now I have to tell you the rest of the story. It's kind of long so I'm serializing it.
It all began with a Christmas play in 2002. I don't ever do theater at Christmas, but I had been seeking God's purpose for my life and when I was asked to direct one of my musicals as the church Christmas program, I prayed for a fabulous production, committed myself to God, and began rehearsal.
As Christmas approached, cast quit, sets broke, rehearsals were canceled. Everything went wrong. The Production became more and more difficult. I was in tears half the time and I really wanted to quit. But I had made that commitment to God so I just kept praying and making new plans half hoping God would make it impossible to continue.
As I became immersed in the play it occurred to me that the birth of Jesus was really a miracle of love and for no real reason, my prayer changed. I began to pray for a miracle love.
The two principals who were from the church music program had an out of town death in the family two weeks before opening. I had no one to fill their roles so I thought it was a sign to abandon the production and stay home.
But from nowhere two more singers showed up. They were not from the church and their past was a little checkered, but they were very talented and very committed so I gave them a chance. Through a couple of terrible snowstorms and a lot of chaos, we rehearsed. At last it was a perfect night and we were ready for opening.
I was on my way to opening night when my daughter called to say that the two new singers had called her saying they weren't going to be at the opening. She said the guy sounded stoned.
My son in law with whom I had a rather cool relationship at that time got on the phone. He said, "That blankety blank can't do this to you. I'm going over there and beat the SOB up." I hoped he wouldn't really do that, but somehow it was nice just to know he cared.
Though I couldn't understand why God was not rewarding me for all my hard work with a great production, I was resigned. The only thing I could do was break the news to the cast and put up signs for the audience.
A couple of blocks from the church, the cell phone rang again and it was my son in law. He said, "Don't cancel the show! Becky and will play Mary and Joseph."
I said, "But you don't know the lines."
He said, "We know the songs and we're learning the lines now."
I told him I would have to leave it up the cast.
He said, "We're on the way! We'll know the lines when we get there!"
I broke the news to the cast and they were distraught. But when I told them about my kids wanting to play Mary and Joseph, they insisted we go ahead with the production. A daughter of the singer playng Mary was to play the shepherd so we were still short one character when one of the actors out of town company showed up early. The man insisted he would play the shepherd so we quickly improvised a costume. My daughter and her husband arrived with my grandson who was playing a lamb. They knew the songs and the lines well enough to improvise. And though everyone's nerves were absolutely shot, the audience applauded like crazy and no one knew what chaos was going on backstage. It was the most wonderful Christmas production I have ever seen.

Afterward, the pastor called me on stage to take a bow with the cast. As I stood there in the spotlight with my family, I knew I was surrounded by a true miracle of love.

But that's only the beginning of the miracle. More later.
smile
P.S. This does lead back to the subject of Internet Relationships, I promise.

[ May 06, 2005, 05:43 PM: Message edited by: smilinize ]