Hello ,
As soon as I opened the case, I knew that this one was really special!
I LOVE guitars.
Especially old ones.
It's no wonder then, that our home often has 6-10 guitars at any given time. I'm always on the look-out for that next 6-string discovery!
A week ago, I found a brand and model that I have been looking into purchasing for a very long time. It's an old 1970's Yamaha acoustic outfit, with a state-of-the-art (at the time), custom pickup (for playing it through an amplifier), complete with the volume and tone knobs installed directly on the body. There's something clumsy and simple about this particular model, and I've been searching for the right one for a very long
time.
Yesterday, that dream was realized as the UPS truck pulled up to our home (where we have been quarantined for weeks.
I put on my latex gloves and pulled the guitar case from the box, and opened it. What I saw took my breath away. There, nestled in that old cardboard guitar case was the guitar that you see in the picture above.
This old instrument has been PLAYED over the years! So much so, that you will notice that it have finger marks below the pick guard, where its previous owner rested their fingers as they worked through the music that this guitar produced.
The strings must have been 30+ years old
I stood in awe for a few moments, and wondered who had owned it, what they had played, and how many thousands of hours they had cradled it in their arms. I'm normally not the sentimental sort, but it hit me (because of the immense dust and cruddy strings), that this old 6-string had been in someone's closet for a very long time. I was the new owner of what was possibly someone else's best
friend.
I don't want to become too philosophical about it all, but the spiritual parallels came rushing into my mind like a flood. This old guitar, so battered and worn, hadn't made any real music for years. I pulled it out of the case, tuned it up, and strummed a G chord. The old strings sounded dead and muted, but the chord rang out simple and true in my hands.
Yesterday afternoon, I put new strings on this old flat-top and took a cleaning towel to the areas that had long been neglected while it sat. The resulting sound that came bursting from it made my heart beat a little faster. This was one I was going to keep!
"I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh." Ezekiel 36:26
I went on Facebook last evening, and sang hymns with my friends on Facebook Live, while playing this old / new instrument. As I strummed each melody to songs like The Old Rugged Cross, and Amazing Grace, it hit me hard; Jesus wants to make music through my life...even when it looks like beautiful notes couldn't possibly come from it.
Maybe this week, I can put a hymn on Youtube, and you can have a listen. It was something that really made my day, yesterday...and I wanted to share the experience with you.
Have a great day and God bless!
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