Paper angels & a ukulele

A ukulele, a flute, a wooden recorder, and some songbooks.  My most portable, kid-friendly music stash, all stuffed into one of those pull-carts on wheels.  It’s funny that I can hardly play the ukulele, yet it still tossed into the cart.  All this simply because I was curious.  I had learned about the Strong Foundation through the church that I study with during the week.  Our group of ladies had been asked to adorn with paper angels a large wreath that would hang in the church foyer.  Each angel held the name of a child who temporarily lived at the Strong Foundation, and each was available to be adopted for Christmas gift-giving.  That was my first acquaintance with the name Strong.  At home a few days later, my husband called to me from the kitchen, “Here’s your flier from church about the Strong Foundation.”  Yet I knew the church didn’t give out fliers.  What he found was an info sheet that had come in a mailbox packet of ads mostly for lawn care and carpet cleaning.  The 3 words Strong Foundation Ministries at the top had caught my eye, so I kept the sheet to remind me to look up their website.  So twice now, on separate occasions, the name Strong had garnered my attention, and I began to wonder if the Lord might be at work.  The next Monday I dialed up the Strong Foundation to see if I could volunteer somehow.  In retrospect, I wonder now if at least subconsciously I may have doubted.  After all, what’s the likelihood the staff there would have an idea ready for some unknown lady on the phone?  But in reality the staff member who answered did in fact offer that I could come the next day to entertain the preschoolers while their moms unloaded a food truck.  Right there my heart did one of those ecstatic leaps of near-disbelief.  Tuesday came, and I wheeled in my music stash, and we sang and played and acted out songs.  The kids smiled to exaggerate the hand motions for “Deep and Wide” and somehow loved to pretend we were rowing a boat as we sang a whole bunch of tunes.  One little boy chose to stand in the center of the room in order to strum the ukulele and compose an original song about all the friendly animals painted along the walls.  Being there that day felt very much right.  I had dialed the phone because I didn't want to risk missing the Lord, just in case He had something in mind for me.  Following Him does indeed give the deepest and widest of joys, just like the song says.