Dulcimer

I have a story to tell you that is just beginning, of God’s faithfulness. Would you like to hear? If so, read on.

I started writing at a pretty young age and while I appreciate it, I have always admired people who could draw art or play an instrument. I tried a few different ones growing up and none really stuck…piano, didgeridoo, flute.

When I was 10, 12, 13 (somewhere around there), I became aware of a television show set in the Appalachian Mountains about the English and Scotch-Irish who settled that region, and became fascinated by their musical history. As I grew older, I fell in love with folklore and especially, early American folk ballads.

Among them, I was especially drawn to the fiddle and to the mountain dulcimer. Now, growing up, my father had a fiddle we never played, but a year or so ago, I walked into a music shop to get it tuned and tried playing for the first time.

What I quickly discovered is that self-instruction can sometimes result in bad practices of fiddle playing that can be hard to break later, so I abandoned the attempt (for now). But, I have still been curious about the dulcimer, even though I’ve never tried it.

For a little while now, I have felt drawn to getting a mountain dulcimer. I don’t know why at this point in my life I decided to start pursuing it. I wasn’t even sure what they cost. After some research, I had a better idea of what a low-end dulcimer goes for around here.

A while back, I went dulcimer shopping. I experienced what I can only describe as “shopper paralysis” as there were so many options, but with none of them did I feel a stirring in my heart for, and I was horribly disappointed. I left empty handed.

I now had a better idea mentally of what I sensed I wanted. Realistically, it was never going to fit into my budget. I already had a conversation with God that if He wanted me to take this leap and get a dulcimer, He was going to have to work with what I could afford.

It wasn’t until I was woken up in the middle of the night by the devil whispering lies about God’s lack of provision that I started wondering if maybe I should’ve settled and bought a random dulcimer that didn’t fit my list, when I had had the chance. What if I missed out?

I went looking online to see if any of the ones I’d seen were still available, and that’s when I saw it; a dulcimer that I felt God said to my heart, “This is the one I prepared for you.” It was beautiful. It hit some (but not all) of my checklist, and it was the only one there.

Without going into all of the details, getting there to this particular music shop ended up being a challenge and I felt as if God was saying, “If you want this, you need to go today. This is the way.” I ended up walking 4km, up and down two hills, from the nearest transit stop, passing streets named after saints, and a wooden heart someone had nailed to a tree. When I got to the music store, not only was this particular dulcimer still available, but, the website description left off details.

Each of the things on my list, including the ones I thought didn’t make the cut, were all there after all, as if God Himself had seen my checklist and said, “Anything else?” And who am I to argue? And to top it off, the dulcimer and the accessories came a few dollars shy of the price point I’d given God to “work with”. If I’d bought a pair of strings, it probably would’ve rounded up to exactly that. No joke. It seems like God wanted me to own a dulcimer. So, I bought it and took it home.

Now, the very first weekend I had the dulcimer, I was looking forward to sitting down and trying to learn how to play. On the way home from work that day, I was thinking about how much I loved God, and singing or humming to myself songs about God and praying for people, and, I missed a raised slab of sidewalk, and went crashing, hard, and breaking the fall with my hands.

My palms looked like they’d been through a cheese grater. Mercifully, I was able to get home, unlock the house, and shut the door before the shock caught up with me and my brain registered the pain. I’ll spare you the rest of the details but, there was no way with my bleeding, stinging hands that I was going to be playing anytime soon. I didn’t even have gauze in the house to bandage them properly. It was just going to have to wait.

While I was thanking God for not being more seriously hurt, and for making it home safely, I felt His nudge again that I should practice playing my dulcimer, now, bleeding hands and all. So I found myself strumming and trying to read TAB (tablature) for “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing”, which turned into “Amazing Grace”, and while my palms were freshly opened and bleeding, my fingers were able to press the frets and hold a pick.

It was kind of around that time I realized, maybe I need to start documenting this journey with this dulcimer because, it seems significant, maybe even prophetic, to not only be facing a mild form of suffering but being called to praise God in the middle of it all, which made me wonder, what exactly does God have in store for this little dulcimer in my broken hands?