"Walk" Talk

“Beth”

Imagine a woman named Beth, a forty-two year old nurse, who lives near First Presbyterian Church and who has loved music all her life. Beth had driven along Mesa one evening and the beautiful back-lit stained glass, a legacy from the long-ago downtown church that had moved through town as Austin changed, calls out to her.

Two days later she sees a notice that a concert, part of St. Cecilia Music Series, will be held on Saturday night.  She decides at the last minute to attend. The acoustics of the sanctuary are a delight. The baroque period instruments are a wonderful surprise, as are the voices of the talented choir. 

Her condominium on Spicewood Springs Road is a tight fit for her and her two teenage daughters.  As an emergency room nurse, she works forty hour weeks, with shifts that rotate.  It’s a struggle to keep her life balanced. Being the sole parent of teenagers is not easy. Nor is it easy being a teenager with a sole parent, or even two.  Life is a journey, and all the ages have their challenges – challenges to which we all have our own responses.

Church has never been her thing, but the music touches her.  It brings needed peace.

Several rows behind Beth at the concert, a member of First Presbyterian Church takes note of her.  He had been in Seton’s emergency room a few weeks before with his son who’d had a bike accident requiring fourteen stitches to his mouth.  Beth had been wonderfully consoling and comforting in that situation. He nudges his wife who notices Beth as well and smiles.  They each make a silent resolution to speak to her once the concert is over.  God’s grace is upon us in all ways.