 The Violin - his Passion
The melodic strains of a violin heard one Friday evening from a lobby at Barnes-Jewish Hospital, was the heartfelt gratitude of a former patient who had almost lost the ability to play the instrument again. "I suppose it is a beautiful way of saying 'thank you' to the hospital and its staff, but it's a lot of other things as well," mused Ken Wollberg. "It's a way to share a beautiful thing."
Watch it here: https://youtu.be/9B6r4hoVJWM
The Violin - His Passion
Wollberg, 58, began playing the violin in a fourth-grade music class in Omaha, Nebraska, and became 'almost addicted to it, in a way.' His love for the instrument eventually led to a master's degree in viola performance from the University of Iowa. Although he was passionately fond of playing professionally, his real delight was teaching the viola and violin to enthusiastic young students. Besides, he performed with various music groups and symphonies, but it was hard to make a living off his music, as everyone in the profession knows only too well. So he and his wife, Peggy, decided to launch careers as truck drivers and in 2002 began hauling rigs cross-country. Eventually, they bought a truck for themselves and leased their services. Wollberg and his wife were hauling three flatbeds, piled up on the back of their truck on Dec. 27, 2007, when it struck a patch of ice in Montana and before they knew what was happening, they found themselves slithering across the length of about four football fields before toppling to one side. The driver's side window had shattered, and Wollberg's left elbow took a beating. His triceps muscle detached, and bone scraped away from his elbow. Surveying the damage, the orthopedic surgeon Dr. Jay Keener who attended on him observed, "I told him from the get-go that it was uncertain if he would ever be able to play the violin again, depending on the amount of nerve damage, weakness and stiffness he had sustained." Keener re-attached Wollberg's triceps muscle to the bone. Plastic surgeon Dr. Ida Fox performed a skin graft to cover the outside of the wound. A second operation last July released scar tissue and stretched the elbow. But it was only after several months of painful grueling exercises and therapy visits that Wollberg gradually returned to teaching music as before. "That whole time, I didn't realize how serious it was," Wollberg reminisces. "My hand worked, but it was a struggle to play the violin again. It took a month, maybe, to reach the bottom string." He complains that his arm is still weak, but nevertheless, last fall he performed with the Paducah Symphony Orchestra in Kentucky. When Wollberg returned to Barnes-Jewish Hospital recently for a checkup, he brought along his violin. "My desire was to show that I had my violin-playing back under control. I wanted them to see the work they had done with such loving dedication and care was eminently successful," he reflected. The doctors were immensely impressed and grateful and the hospital staff asked the patient to schedule another appointment - but this time as a performer. Wollberg and his friend, guitarist Jim Stieren, appeared that Friday at the hospital's Centre for Advanced Medicine in St. Louis. Peggy Wollberg joined them and sang a few songs, including 'Amazing Grace.' Cherry Brown, 58, paused after a vascular test to join the crowd in the lobby and enjoy the music. "The fact that he is able to play after the accident is a wonderful thing," she remarked. "That's a God-given talent well used."
Gratitude Meaningfully Shown
Most people express gratitude with a casual 'Thank-you' or sometimes with a heartfelt expression accompanied by a gift of some kind. However, gratitude is best shown by a change of life-style as did Wollberg. How many of us pay heed to this aspect of gratitude? Take the example of the gift of forgiveness which God gives us so graciously through the dying-rising of Jesus, his Son. The ideal way to show one's gratitude for this gift is to avoid repeating the sin ever again in one's life, and at the same time to share one's forgiveness with another, especially when the person has hurt us beyond our expectations. Only when our gratitude for forgiveness includes these two aspects can we say that it is genuine and complete - gratitude shown in action and not just in words alone. The express need of passing on forgiveness to others is brought home to us through the parable of the unforgiving servant. However, what most seem to miss in their understanding of this parable is that when the first servant fails to extend forgiveness to his fellow-servant, he loses the very gift that he had received earlier - he is thrown into prison until he had paid the entire debt. And considering the amount he owed (ten thousand talents, the equivalent in modern currency being several thousands of millions of dollars!) that would mean an extremely long sentence! And what about gratitude for the gift of life, experienced through recovery from a fatal illness, or when we escaped a near-death accident? Does that ever really make us begin life on a fresh page, with a deeper trust in the Lord's providence and a greater readiness to reach out to others, especially those for whom life is a burden in some way? How often does good health and physical vigor move us to go out of our way to work for the physically challenged and less gifted, polio patients, accident victims and the like? We would all acknowledge that it is fairly easy (even though meaningful) to say a verbal 'thank-you' for a favor received. But to make that favor the springboard for a new level of living is something out of the ordinary! In 2 Cor. 5:14-15 Paul reminds us that Jesus loved each of us so much that he literally identified himself with us, taking the penalty of death on himself (one man died for all!). And so, he concludes, living persons should no longer live for themselves for him who for their sakes died and was raised. He not only taught this truth, but actually lived it. 'For me,' he avowed, 'to live is Christ and to die again!' What a difference it would make if each Christian were to realize this truth to the very marrow of his/her bones! Would we not thank the Lord for all that he has done for us?!? "What shall I return to the Lord for all his goodness to me? I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord" (Ps 116:12-13). As we remember Wollberg and his almost childlike candidness in wanting to thank the doctors who helped him get back the use of his left hand, could we take a serious look at our lives and pick out one area in which we feel (or even ought to feel) this kind of gratitude to the Lord? How could we express this more meaningfully not just in words, but in actions that will reveal the glory of what God has done for us? | 
