Last night I held a private concert here in the Hall at our farm. For seven people.
It wasn't planned. Or at least, it wasn't for me. But for the folks who drove here from all across the country, it had been planned for awhile.
It had been a full day here at our farm. There'd been a special 'one-room schoolhouse experience' going on at the school all day that we'd all been part of (I'll share that blog story soon) , and then we'd been getting ready for the first homemaking class in the Hub tomorrow (another upcoming story) and after that, Indy and I did chores and moved our cows to a new paddock. By 5 pm, Indiana and Rebecca and I were sitting in the farmhouse with our boots off and feet up, exhausted from the day, talking about getting a pizza so we didn't have to cook... when I got a call from my nephew Mikel who asked "are you busy?"
I said I 'kinda was', but I could get 'un-busy' if he needed me too, and then he told me that he was down at the concert hall gate and there were some cars and people there who said they were here for tonight's concert.
Hmmm... I thought. "What concert?" I asked.
"Yours", Mikel said. The next thing you know I'm in the lobby of the concert hall with Mikel and Keith, meeting some really nice folks who had driven up from Mobile, Alabama and some others who made the trek down from Indiana for my concert that evening.
It turns out that before I shared my 'free concert' Memorial Day weekend event (which has now turned into two sold-out nights), we had toyed with the idea of doing some other concert dates here in the hall throughout the year and evidently those dates were on the calendar and our website for a short time. And so, the people from Alabama and Indiana, along with three more from Wisconsin had all purchased tickets and had no idea that those dates had long been cancelled, or that we'd already had a full day and were ready to call it a night. They were here for a show that they were excited about and had been waiting months to come to.
So...
I apologized of course and told them there had been a pretty good mix-up on our end, and then I asked them if I could meet them back there at 7 pm and we'd do our best to make it right and they all said yes.
I made a quick trip to Chapel Hill to get pizza as Rebecca helped Indy get her shower. After dinner and getting Indy in her PJ's, Rebecca headed home to her house to get ready for another big day that she had coming up tomorrow at the Hub, and Indy and I got my guitar out walked to the concert hall one more time.
And that's how it came to be that on a Friday night in April, instead of a regular big concert with lots of folks in chairs and me on the stage, me and Indy and some super nice folks from all round the country, gathered in a circle of chairs and sat and talked, sang songs and had a wonderful evening together.
Instead of coming to a regular show in the barn, they got a private concert. And instead of a night with my feet up, I got the gift of singing and sharing our evening with some really nice people I didn't know before then.
And we were all blessed with a night that we'll probably never forget...
As usual, God's plan is always so much better than ours.
