We All Need Backup Singers

This is a picture I didn't know was being taken. What do you mean, you can tell? ;) My dad had asked my daughter what "that famous Frozen song that everyone is groaning about" is. So we popped in the Frozen soundtrack and my daughter began singing along to "Let It Go." I thought Dad was taking a picture just of her, but clearly, he captured me, her dish-wiping-but-ever-so-sincere backup singer, as well. I'm actually OK with this. In the future, when we look back together on my kids' growing up years, and notice that Mom isn't in all that many pictures (because normally I'm the one with the camera), I'm going to use this snapshot and tell them, "See, look! I was your backup singer. Still am." And I will explain what this means, on more than one  level. The truth is, we all need backup singers: those who not only believe in us, but who lift us up, and even sing for us when we forget our own song. [Tweet "We all need backup singers to sing for us when we forget our own song."] May I confess something to you? There have been times in my writing life when the only thing keeping me at my computer was the fact that I had a legal obligation to fulfill my contract with a publisher. I had been so burned out I was white-knuckling through my word counts, not at all certain I had anything of actual value to tell the world. But when I confide in one or two trusted writer friends, they bolster me. They sing back to me the words I was no longer singing myself--words of hope, and trust, and confidence in our calling--until I remembered the tune and found my groove once again. This is not something I can do on my own. And then, there are times when my backup singers do something even more important for me. They pray on my behalf, when I can barely breathe. This was certainly the case when my husband was unofficially diagnosed with cancer. (See My Two Secrets.) You see, I have another confession to make. When the surgeon told me the mass was Hogkin's Lymphoma, I didn't pray for a miracle. I didn't pray for instant and total healing. I'd seen too many friends struggle through cancer and the painful, ugly treatment cycles to think for a second that my family deserved to be spared all of that while others suffered. It didn't cross my mind to pray for a clean bill of health. I did pray, but it was for the strength and grace to endure what lay ahead. I prayed that our testimony as Christians would not be marred by ungodly responses to trials. Little did I know, while I was praying these things with a breaking heart, my backup singers--who didn't yet know what the surgeon had told me--were praying for good news. Really good news. Miraculous news: no cancer. God heard them, and He said yes. Maybe the surgeon was wrong from the beginning. Maybe there never was any cancer in my dear husband's body. Then again, I can't help but think of the story in Mark 2:1-12, in which Jesus healed the paralytic after seeing the faith of the friends who had carried him to Christ (verse 5). This is what friends, true friends, do for us. They bring us to Christ in prayer when we ourselves are running low on faith. They sing truth to us until we sing it ourselves. They support us, harmonize with us, and help us make sense of life together. They do this, not from a distance, but on the same stage, in the same mess in which we stand.

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