A Blessing I Won't Take for Granted

The ads for Black Friday have been going strong for several days now. They've been telling us all we really cant live without something we have done without for all these years.

Or as a friend tells me, Black Friday is when people buy a $300 tent to wait in line to save $50 on a television. Or it is the day that thankful people get up to push and shove to spend money they don't have on items they don't need.

At least that is what I expect of Black Friday.

Sometimes, though, we just need to sit back and think about some of the simple things in life. We say it often, but do we really understand it? I think I do now.

Something that happened in my life that really taught this old boy, at age 57, that the things we take for granted every day really do matter most.

A couple of months ago, I was checking my Facebook account when I saw where Paul Martin, who had been a member of Marty Stuart's band, The Fabulous Superlatives, had posted a YouTube video that caught my attention.

It was Kathy Mattea, Suzy Bogguss and Allison Krauss, three of the sweetest voices this side of heaven, singing the classic “Teach Your Children” at the White House in 1995. Legendary guitarist Chet Atkins was in the video while Martin was playing the pedal steel guitar. I had known of Paul for many years, dating to his time as a member of another of my favorite groups, Exile.

But I had no idea about this gig, in which he was actually a last-minute replacement for someone who had an appendicitis attack. If you have never seen it, check it out here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g795h7HaZsw

What really got me about the video, though, was the song itself. I had not known about this version of the great Crosby, Stills and Nash song. Apparently, it had been very popular 20 years ago, but I never knew that three of my favorite singers had this version of one of my favorite songs.

Those who know me know that I have cochlear implants. Since undergoing the surgeries to stimulate my cochlea, I've had the world of music reopened. From about 1992 or so until having the second cochlear device implanted in 2010, I rarely listened to music. Usually, it just sounded like jumbled noise.

Dr. Kari Mobley, then my audiologist at the University of Kentucky, introduced me to Pandora and encouraged me to listen to as much music as possible.

But I had not thought about “Teach Your Children,” which I actually heard first performed by The Imperials, a gospel group, back when I was in high school.

The video Paul posted might have been some good entertainment for many people. To me, however, it was another link to those days before my hearing deteriorated to the point of giving up something I love.

After watching the video, I immediately got out the inexpensive guitar I purchased last year. I started strumming that “D” chord, the key in which I had played “Teach Your Children” more than 30 years ago. Then “G,” “A” and so on. Admittedly, it was a bit rough and my fingers did not perform some of the runs I had been able to perform when I had played a 12-string guitar years ago.

To many, this might seem silly. After all, it was just a song.

But it is the very point I was profoundly reminded of when Paul posted that link. Just a song, regardless of its magnitude on the charts, can be something more profound to others.

I heard it. And yes, I could still play it, rough as it might be.

THAT, is a blessing.

It's so easy to overlook even the smallest things in life, even simply listening to a song or strumming a few chords on a guitar.

But they, too, are blessings. I will never take them for granted again.

“Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.” James 1:17.