inspirstoryone

Inspirational Stories

Taken from the Houston Chronicle:

On Nov. 18, 1995, Itzhak Perlman, the violinist, came on stage to give a concert at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center in New York City.

If you have ever been to a Perlman concert, you know that getting on stage is no small achievement for him. He was stricken with polio as a child, and so he has braces on both legs and walks

with the aid of two crutches. To see him walk across the stage one step at a time, painfully and slowly, is an awesome sight. He walks painfully, yet majestically, until he reaches his chair. Then he sits down, slowly, puts his crutches on the floor, undoes the clasps on his legs, tucks one foot back and extends the other foot forward. Then he bends down and picks up the violin, puts it under his chin, nods to the conductor and proceeds to play.
By now, the audience is used to this ritual. They sit quietly while he makes his way across the stage to his chair. The remain reverently silent while he undoes the clasps on his legs. The wait until he is ready to play. But this time, something went wrong. Just as he finished the first few bars, one of the strings on his violin broke. You could hear it snap - it went off like gunfire across the room. There was no mistaking what that sound meant. There was no mistaking what he had to do. People who were there that night thought to themselves: "We figured that he would have to get up, put on the clasps again, pick up the crutches and limp his way off the stage - to either find another violin or else find another string for this one."
But he didn't. Instead, he waited a moment, closed his eyes and then signaled the conductor to begin again. The orchestra began, and he played from where he had left off. And he played with such passion and such power and such purity as they hed never heard before. Of course, anyone knows that it is impossible to play a symphonic work with just three strings. I know that, and you know that, but that night Itzhak Perlman refused to know that. You could see him modulating, changing, re-composing the poece in his head. At one point, it sounded like he was de-tuning the strings to get new sounds from them that they had never made before.
   When he finished, there was an awesome silence in the room. And then people rose and cheered. There was an extraordinary outburst of applause from every corner of the auditorium. We were all on our feet, screaming and cheering, doing everything we could to show how much we appreciated what he had done.
   He smiled, wiped the sweat from his brow, raised his bow to quiet us, and then he said - not boastfully, but in a quiet, pensive, reverent tone, "You know, sometimes it is the artist's task to find out how much music you can still make with what you have left."
What a powerful line that is. It has stayed in my mind ever since I heard it. And who knows? Perhaps that is the definition of life - not just for artists, but for all of us. Here is a man who has prepared all his life to make music on a violin with four strings, who, all of a sudden, in the middle of a concert, finds himself with only three strings; so he makes music with three strings, and the music he made that night with just three strings was more beautiful, more sacred, more memorable, than any that he had ever made before, when he had four strings.
   So, perhaps our task in this shaky, fast-changing, bewildering world in which we live, is to make music, at first with all that we have, and than, when that is no longer possible, to make music with what we have left.

~~~Jack Riemer, Houston Chronicle, February 10, 2001

Three Strings

She had been shopping with her mom in Wal-Mart. She must have been about 6 years old, this beautiful brown haired, freckle-faced image of innocence. It was pouring outside...the kind of rain that gushes over the tops of rain gutters, so much in a hurry to hit Earth it has no time to flow down the spot.

Drains in the nearby parking lot were filled to capacity and some were blocked so that huge puddles laced around parked cars. We all stood under the awning and just inside the door of Wal-Mart.

We waited, some patiently, others irritated because nature messed up their day. I am always mesmerized by rainfall. I get lost in the sound and sight of the heavens washing away the dirt and dust of the world. Memories...of running, splashing so carefree as a child...come pouring in as a welcome reprieve from the worries of my day.

Her voice was so sweet as it broke the hypnotic trance in which I was caught.

"Mom, let's run through the rain," she said.

"What?" Mom asked.

"Let's run through the rain!" she repeated.

"No, honey. We'll wait until it slows down a bit," Mom replied.

This young child waited about another minute and repeated, "Mom. Let's run through the rain."

"We'll get soaked if we do," Mom said.

"No, we won't, Mom. That's not what you said this morning," the young girl said as she tugged at her mom's arm.

"This morning? When did I say we could run through the rain and not get wet?" Mom asked.

"Don't you remember? When you were talking to Daddy aout his cancer, you said, 'If God can get us through this, He can get us through anything!'"

The entire crowd stopped dead silent. Honestly, you could hear nothing but the rain. We all stood silently. No one came or left in the next few minutes.

Mom paused and thought for a moment about what she would say. Now some would laugh it off and scold her for being silly. Some might even ignore what was said. But this was a moment of affirmation in a young child's life. A time when innocent trust can be nurtured so that it will bloom into faith.

"Honey, you are absolutely right. Let's run through the rain. If God lets us get wet, well maybe we just needed washing," Mom said. Then off they ran.

We all stood watching, smiling, and laughing as they darted past the cars and, yes, through the puddles. They held their shopping bags over their heads just in case.

Of course, they got soaked...and were followed by a few who screamed and laughed like children all the way to their cars.

I believe that somewhere down the road in life, 'Mom' will find herself reflecting back on moments they spent together, captured like pictures in a scrapebook of her cherished memories...maybe when she watches proudly as her daughter graduates or, hopefully, as 'Daddy' walks her down the aisle on her wedding day. They will laugh again...their hearts will beat a little faster...their smiles will tell the world, they love each other.

But only they will share that precious moment when they ran through the rain believing that God would get them through. And yes, I did. I ran. I got wet. I needed washing.

'To everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under heaven.' Ecclesiastes 3:1

I hope you still take the time to run through the rain.

Author Unknown

Running Through the Rain