The Parable of the Lost Violin

Once there was a girl, a beautiful young girl. She took violin lessons at school for $32 (Australian) a lesson, the going rate (I know, it's outrageous!) She didn't particularly enjoy practicing, but she was getting quite good. She made the school orchestra, and was having a lot of fun.

Then one day, something dreadful happened. She lost her violin. She left it at school, as she did on occasion, and the next day, Friday, it was gone. She looked everywhere, but decided not to upset her parents and waited till Monday to tell them it was missing. Her parents were visibly agitated and noteably concerned, but tried their best not to "lose their cool."

Tuesday she looked again, but with no success. It was nearing a week of absense, and like missing people, violins are best found early in the search. To compound the problem, this was not her first violin. Her first violin had suffered a sudden and violent death, due to a fall during practice. Though her parents attempted to glue it back together they had limited success - it became an ornament on their wall, instead of an instrument capable of handling tension on its strings, only to be played occasionally, lest the glue fail and the violin spontaneously disintigrate. The girl's mother in particular dreaded going back to Hannah at Simply for Strings AGAIN to buy another violin (as fun as it is to choose stringed instruments in the shop - it has excellent accoustics!)

Unfortunately, Wednesday, her sister had surgery on her ears (tubes and adenoidectomy) and her mother honestly had no time to help her in her search for the missing musical instrument, more especially since after 8 hours in the lovely hospital, the sister passed out in the elevator of the hospital on her way home and had to stay an extra hour to recouperate. (Seriously, one moment she was standing there and the next she was a pale heap on the floor. Thank goodness there was an ambulance driver in the "lift" to help with the situation.)

Sarah in the recovery room after she got 'tubes" (grommets) and had her adenoids removed.

This beautiful, young girl's cranky and stressed out, but wise, parents knew that she needed to learn the value of her violin by paying for it herself. She had been saving for an ipod touch (another item her parents knew she needed to purchase herself in order to appreciate) and had just earned enough money to buy one, by scrubbing floors and babysitting for her cruel mother, who uses the Financial Peace Jr methodology to teach money management to her children. She was devastated when her parents gently insisted that she use that money to buy herself another violin. (It hurt her parents as well, to have to show "tough love" and they shed tears of their own.) She was so upset, she didn't eat any supper (though I swear it was offered to her) and cried herself to sleep, with her mother smoothing her forehead, gently saying "there, there."

During family scripture study that evening, her family decided to pray together for her to find the missing violin. The beautiful girl prayed, along with her 2 sisters, 2 brothers, and 2 very concerned parents. And they kept looking. . .

The girl awoke the next morning with puffy eyes and a headache from crying. She drearily trudged to school in the rain (just kidding, it wasn't raining). After dropping her siblings off at their respective schools (her poor mother has children going to 3 different schools) and helping her recouperating daughter get comfortable, the mother went to the school to look, once again, for the missing violin.  She was greeted in the school atrium by a smiling, but puffy-eyed daughter. The lost violin had been found! Her teacher had emailed the entire staff of the school. One of the gym teachers had seen the violin lying on a bench at the sports center!

And there was much rejoicing. They even made Rice Krispie Treats, with real, American marshmallows. (Now that’s a special occasion.)
And the moral of the story is:
Pray. And have your family pray with you. Ask for help.