On a recent trip to Nashville, Tennessee I saw God move in ways I had not asked for and do not feel worthy of receiving. In order to describe to you the beautiful ways in which I saw God move on my behalf, I need to go back to about a month ago. In early June while at work I was cleaning out my email inbox and noticed an email in my spam account that I had missed about a worship conference. It was an advertisement for the Worship Together Conference in Nashville and upon reading it I thought to myself, “Oh my goodness, this sounds amazing!” and I assumed the email was offering me information for 2023 since the last time I attended this event it had been in May but low and behold it was announcing the lineup for June 2022 and my heart sank since the dates of the conference were only two weeks away. After thinking about it for a few hours I decided I would reach out to the accountant of the church where I am on staff and inquire if there was a way I could attend this conference. Coincidentally, in my recent annual review, my Pastor and I had discussed taking advantage of opportunities to help develop me professionally by attending conferences or developmental activities when they came across my lap.

In 2019 my husband and I had the privilege of attending the Worship Together Conference where it had been two days filled with wonderful speakers, musicians, and of course workshops on the latest technology and strategies within the framework of my role as a worship leader. I emailed the accountant not holding my breath that she would say yes to such a big ask on such short notice. The next morning I awoke to a happy reply that communicated the church would gladly cover the cost of the trip with a small portion needing to come from my annual operations budget. I was elated and wasted no time booking my flights, hotel, and registering for the event. 

As I looked ahead at the date of my trip I realized I would need to miss our mid-week rehearsal but did not want to cancel since that would make Sunday morning feel crunched and that can cause undue stress on our tech team so I reached out to the Music Director to let her know of my plans and sought her help in how we could make the mid-week rehearsal flow without me there. She was a great sport and assured me that all would be taken care of. Unfortunately, airline ticket sales were at a peak high as the world was waking up from COVID travel shutdowns over the past two years so this made me want to take full advantage of the opportunity and this itinerary would allow me to fly to Nashville a day prior and spend a little downtime in the gorgeous city I fell in love with three years prior.

On the morning of my departure, my supportive husband drove me to the airport for the 8:00 am flight. To save a few hundred dollars I had booked my flight through a third-party app for the reason I mentioned before and with the flight being cheaper it had me connecting in Dallas and then continuing on to Nashville where I would arrive just in time for dinner. As I waited to board the plane I began to feel nervous about the fact that I was unfamiliar with the airline and unsure of how to find my connecting flight at the next airport. I expressed this concern to a friend who had been wishing me well on my travels via text and she encouraged me to download the airline’s app. I thought, “I don’t want to download an app for an airline I may never fly again,” but as I got settled onto the plane my gut told me to go ahead and do so. Thankfully just before take off I secured my information in the airline app. Immediately upon landing in Nashville I received a notification that my connecting flight was canceled. It turns out it was a newsworthy event where major airlines had canceled over 1400 flights that day. I felt a small seed of panic rise in my chest as I looked at my phone wondering what to do. Thankfully the app prompted me with the option to book another flight, however, the only date offered was the next day at 7:00 am. In a knee-jerk reaction, I selected the 7:00 am flight and quickly texted my husband who flies much more frequently than me to seek any advice on what to do next and he encouraged me to head to a ticket counter to see what could be done. When I deboarded the plane and arrived at the ticket booth I was one of many with the same dilemma since there were over 30 people in line in front of me. The anxiety and worry began to set in. 

I waited in line and began to do what I do best, make small talk with complete strangers. One young gal was from San Diego and like me heading to Nashville. She was excited for a girl’s weekend but sad that she might miss out on seeing a friend who would not be there if she arrived the following day. A family of six was in front of us returning home from a family vacation and had already experienced major drama on their way to California and getting frustrated to be in a similar boat on the way back to Ohio. I was grateful to chat with them since it made the time pass quickly. As it soon was my turn I showed the agent my reservation for the 7:00 am flight and asked if there was any way I could fly out today when he noticed that my flight was not direct from Dallas but had me connecting in DC then to Nashville. He promptly secured a direct flight for the next day, Thursday afternoon, departing at 1:30 pm. In the meantime, I could try to fly Standby on one of the few flights that remained for the day. It was early in the afternoon so I felt hopeful until I arrived at the gate and saw that I was a standby passenger of 20 out of 30. I saw the gal from San Diego and we stood next to each other trying hard to be patient as we knew it was a long shot. When the plane completed its boarding process only three standby passengers had been lucky enough to take off. The flight attendant at the gate began to call out each passenger that remained on the stand-by list; some were no longer present, some chose to stay the night, while the remaining passengers decided to try their luck on the next flight that was left in 30 minutes. After all of that, there were still about fifteen of us hoping to fly out that day when the agent called my name and confirmed I had a flight for the next day. She smiled at me and inquired if I wanted to try my luck with standby at the same time gently giving me a reality check that it was very unlikely so I decided to stay the night in Dallas. I thanked her for her time, said bye to my new friend who was going to chance flying standby and headed to the ticket counter to collect my hotel and meal voucher. 

While I waited for the airport shuttle I called home and gave my husband the update where he in his wisdom brought up the idea that I might want to think about a backup plan in case of delays on the back end of the trip. He asked me to think about who could lead in my place? I sat down and looked at the volunteers that were slated for the Sunday service and the two people that quickly came to mind were either already serving somewhere else or out of town. Then I noticed a peculiar thing. Usually, when I schedule volunteers I schedule three or four vocalists including myself with a vocalist who typically plays acoustic guitar but this Sunday I had scheduled five! Four female vocalists and a male vocalist who played the guitar. In the event of a scenario like this, I would have the acoustic player stationed at the back of the stage because our platform front and center could only fit four vocalists comfortably. However, I had a song in the lineup that needed a male vocalist to lead due to the nature of the song and our only male vocalist played guitar. I then noticed a name jump out at me, “Jennifer.” She was a recent college graduate who had recently begun attending our church and joined the worship team two months prior and began sharing her violin and vocal talent with us. I texted Jennifer to see if she would even entertain the idea to step in and lead for me if I could not make it home in time. She quickly responded yes and assured me she was available to do whatever was needed. At this point, I was frustrated to lose a day in Music City but grateful to be headed to a hotel with a backup plan in place and hopeful that I would get to Nashville without further delays. Little did I realize God was moving in my midst.

I will be posting parts 2 thru 4 over the next few days if you wish to come back and read more.

Part 2 https://lifeonthebackburner.wordpress.com/