From Mashed Potatoes to Bassoon Player

    My memory only goes back so far. I don't recall anything from my birth until I was about three years old and then, there are only certain events that have stayed in my memory bank. During that period of my life, I have to rely on the accounts mostly of my parents and that based only on what they told me. We had a dining room during my infant years that was carpeted. The story goes that Granddad Freeland came over for dinner and wondered why I had to eat in the kitchen, with the linoleum floor. My mother explained to him that after I finished eating what I was going to eat, I would turn my plate upside down on top of my head, thus messing up the floor, so I was not allowed into the carpeted dining room. Twelve years later I was playing bassoon in the newly formed La Porte Symphony orchestra. God sometimes takes a mess and makes a rose out of it. We often look at the newly born infant and say that they will be a good doctor or lawyer or piano player or that they are going to break someone's heart because they are so cute. Only God knows the plan for each individual. Psalm 139:13-14 says, " For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother's womb. I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvelous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well.”

       God knows the plan because He knew us from the moment of conception. The word “reins” originally referred to the kidney but figuratively referred to the mind, or the inner most self. The whole passage gives us evidence that God knew everything about us and He knew that I would go from having mashed potatoes on my head to playing a bassoon or singing in a church or figuring out the problem in a down telephone circuit. God knew and still knows every cell, every nerve, every bone, every muscle and every hair on my head. Not only that, God also knew and still knows every thought and every word that I say or am about to say. We may have a problem figuring out the future, but we have rather good hindsight. We can look back and see where God performed a miracle in our lives because of the people that were put in our path that made a difference such as the salesman who came into my life in the fourth grade and because I could tell the difference between two notes, persuaded my parents to purchase a clarinet for me to learn music. Some may have looked at the infant with mashed potatoes on his head and wondered if he would ever turn out to be anything more than a clown but God had a plan. God has also known and still knows each of you. He knows every word that you are about to say or think. He knows the troubles, the discouragements, the difficulties and the problems that you are going to face and above all, He knows that His grace is going to be sufficient to get you through each of them. God knows even at conception which infants are destined to be doctors, missionaries, dentists, preachers, teachers, givers of mercy and hospitality. Just as God knows you, He knows your children, your grand children, great grand children and so on. What my grandfather didn't understand, God knew. So praise God today for the fact that each of us are fearfully and wonderfully made.