It’s Not About Me

It was a strange time in Tom Keenan’s life. These days he sings every Sunday as he leads the worship team at Chaska’s Valley Evangelical Free Church. But in January 2022, the lifelong musician and vocalist with a two-octave tenor voice could not make a sound. He couldn’t sing. He couldn’t talk. He couldn’t even whisper. What’s worse, the medical specialist told him that due to a paralyzed vocal cord, his voice might be gone — forever.

Even though the church’s pastor and elder board were aware of Tom’s prognosis, they hired him that month as worship leader. In fact, former pastor Mike Sindelar once quipped, “We’re probably the only church with a worship leader who can’t sing!”

The real kicker was that Tom didn’t want to be worship leader, even when he still had a voice. Tom had agreed to serve as interim worship leader, but at age 59, he was planning a different ministry since he’d retired from the postal service. He was going to use his handyman skills to help people in disaster areas.

“I had my pickup truck. I had my tools laid out,” he said. “I had built a bed in the back of my pickup truck because I was going to go with Billy Graham Samaritan’s Purse. I was signed up and ready to go.”

But God had a different plan for Tom. In numerous ways, He pointed Tom to serve as worship leader.

“I was wrestling with him,” Tom recalled. He sensed God telling him, “I thought you wanted to do ministry that I called you to? Well, I’m calling you to this. Are you serving me? Or are you serving yourself?”

The worship leader job had been posted for six months before Tom followed God’s call and applied. Then he lost his voice. Four months after accepting the worship leader position, Tom still couldn’t make a sound. He gestured and used a pen and notebook. He directed other team members to speak and sing. And this gregarious man of Irish descent, who had performed with a national singing group and on numerous stages in the past, was now avoiding social events.

“It made me withdraw into a shell, maybe not outwardly, but inwardly. I didn’t want to go to social functions anymore. I didn’t want to stand around church afterwards anymore. I didn’t want to be anywhere with somebody asking me a question. We tried to go to a birthday party with a bunch of people, and it was the most uncomfortable place I’d ever been for an hour and a half.”

That experience has given him more compassion for others, and he now notices people who are hurting, he said. But at the time, the entire situation didn’t make sense to him.

“I was really frustrated, because I could not understand how God had called me to do something, and then he didn’t allow me the tools to do it. It’s like a drummer without sticks, or a guitar without strings. They make no sound. The lyre can’t strum without strings and that’s the way I was with my voice. This is my primary instrument; this is how I lead. And God just took it from me and said, ‘Lead anyway.’ So, I was extremely frustrated.”

Pride

Tom said he learned some major lessons during this time — predominantly about pride.

“God absolutely ripped pride from my life based on my voice,” he explained.

Prior to attending Valley, Tom had served as worship leader of another church for four years. At that point, God made it clear that Tom should step down from the position. While God didn’t speak directly to him, Tom sensed what He was communicating: “Keenan, you’re done. Sit on the bench.”

“What did I do?” Tom asked God. He sensed God’s reply: “When you figure that out, we’ll talk.”

Tom realized that he had become “very prideful” in his role at the other church. “This was a big discipline thing for me,” Tom said. “I knew what I was doing (as a worship leader). I was good at it, and I thought that the congregation was going to grow spiritually through my leadership. God whistled me off the field, and He didn’t tap me on the shoulder or pat me on the back and say, ‘Good job.’ He put a hard hand on my back, and said, “You’re benched.”

When Tom and Martha began attending Valley, Tom was not part of the staff. He didn’t want to fall into pride again. “For that first year and a half, I was sitting there learning this lesson about pride, having no responsibility and no leadership at church,” Tom said. “I didn’t want it, and nobody was offering anything. Eventually, I got tapped on the shoulder by God again, after we’d gone through this, and He said, ‘Okay, I’m going to put you back in the game.’ ”

After Tom lost his voice, he said it was almost as if God was saying, “I’m going to give you this job that I want you to do, and I’m going to take away your voice to prove to you that it’s about me and not you.”

Peace

For about four months, Tom struggled to silently lead the Valley worship team, but he was planning to resign. “I guess maybe I finally came to the end of me. I thought, I couldn’t do this. It’s bad for Valley. It’s bad for the people. It’s uncomfortable for newcomers. I had this team of 20 people, and I felt like I couldn’t do the job adequately. Every morning, I would get up and pray, God give me back my voice. But it wasn’t happening.”

Then one morning, as Tom was on his knees praying, something astounding happened. “In my heart I was crying out to God, saying, ‘You’ve asked me to be a part of Valley worship team in a leadership position, but I need a voice to do that. You’ve got to give me my voice back.’”

Through tears, as Tom pounded his pillow with his fist, he heard God’s reply: “Tom, I don’t need your voice, I need your heart.”

Tom says he clearly hears God’s voice on occasion, and this time it was “very, very clear.” “That voice came into my heart, soul and mind. And it just leveled me — just broke me, and I wept harder into the pillow,” Tom recalled.

“I understood that I may not get my voice back ever again, but I also felt a deep peace in my soul. I’d had a voice for many years. I used it to His glory. I’d sung on stages. I’d done performance art and entertainment. And if that’s what God wanted to take from me to clean up my life, then I was okay with that.”

Tom got off his knees, telling God that he trusted him. I’m not going to have a voice again, he thought. God will provide, and I’ll be all right. Thank you, God, for what’s been. Tranquility overwhelmed him.

Healing

A few more months went by, with Tom silently leading the worship team. By this point, his doctor had sent him to a vocal coach in an attempt to “wake up” the paralyzed vocal cord. Tom hadn’t uttered a sound in eight months, but as he drove home one day after a vocal appointment, God surprised him.

“I remember exactly where I was,” Tom said. “I was on Highway 35 coming through the spaghetti intersection, getting on 62 doing my vocal exercises. And suddenly, my voice made a sound for the first time! Then a couple of minutes later, I was able to repeat it. And I was able to replicate it a third time, just that first sound. And then I heard the voice of God in my head say to me, ‘I’m going to give you back your voice now. Are you ready?’”

Tom’s eyes grew misty as he remembered this moment. In his mind, he immediately said “Yes” to God. He couldn’t say it out loud.

“Tears were pouring out of my eyes,” he said. “I knew exactly what God meant, God had underscored and removed my pride. We all have it, but that pride in me as a performer was gone. I didn’t have that anymore. I was not relying on a pretty voice. I was relying on everybody else, and I was just organizing and helping orchestrate worship on Sunday morning. I knew what ‘Are you ready’ meant. I had been disciplined by God for my personal pride which ran deep. Then the Holy Spirit could begin to reshape me, starting with my heart.”

Service

Tom’s voice didn’t instantly return. It took some time. Over the next two months, he was slowly able to make more sounds and say words, even though it sounded like he had laryngitis. On the worship team, he gradually added one note after another over the next year.

“It went from three notes to five notes to six notes to eight notes. Now I have one octave, and it is the church octave. It goes from B flat below the staff to C middle staff. It is the sweet spot for the congregation to sing,” Tom explained. “My upper tenor voice is completely gone. I do not have my full range of my ‘lovely’ tenor tones back. They’ll never come back, and that’s okay. I can sing, I can talk, I can share the Gospel.

“I just have a congregational singing voice. God has given me exactly what I need to do the tasks that He has called me to do. And that’s what I asked for. In my prayers, I said, ‘God, I just need to sing what the congregation needs to sing.’ He keeps me humble, because every now and then my voice will crack and disappear for a couple of notes at a time.”

Tom said his security is not in his voice anymore, and he’s never felt so good about his place in life.

“Right now, I know this is exactly what God has given me to do. God brings us to the end of ourselves,” Tom added, “so we realize that all we have left is him. 1 Timothy 1:12 says, ‘I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has given us strength, that He considered me trustworthy, appointing me to His service.’ Wow, that is so true.

“I think my primary lesson was when God said to me, ‘I don’t need your voice, I need your heart.’ I suppose God could say that to anybody about anything. I don’t need your writing skills, I need your heart. I don’t need your mechanics ability, I need your heart.’

We’re all just here to serve Him in our current circumstance.”

Lost and Found

Karen Teigland has so many stories about her life with God that it was difficult for her to choose just one. Should the 78-year-old wife, mother and grandmother share how she came to know Jesus or about missions work she’s done with her husband, Arne? Should she talk about how God led their family into six Communist countries and around the world doing his work? How about the tales of God’s peace as she was diagnosed with cancer or how God led her to start a Bible study for neighbors? Karen decided to start with a simple story of a gift from God that strengthened her faith and became a testimony to others.

Karen was working at the Chaska Event Center in October of 2020 taking tickets for an outside celebration when she noticed it. A diamond in her wedding ring was missing. She’d been wearing that ring for 55 years, so it was valuable in more ways than one.

“Oh! My diamond’s gone!” she said. Her two co-workers immediately hit the ground, looking for Karen’s diamond in the grass. Karen realized she might have lost it inside the building when she was putting on tablecloths and knocked her ring against the tables.

“I told the gals, ‘I'm going inside just to see.’ So, I’m on the floor looking under tables to see if there's a diamond.”

When she didn’t find it, she returned to work. After she got home, she prayed about it with her husband.

“God, you are the only one who knows where this diamond is,” she prayed. “It’s a needle in a haystack, and I'm just going to rest in you. Lord, if you want me to have that diamond back, you will somehow show me where it is.”

Karen said she didn't grumble, complain or feel sorry for herself, even though resting in God doesn’t come naturally to her. “I’ll tell you that for sure, but I was able to rest in the Lord this time. And we just settled with it.”

More than a year passed, and the diamond stayed lost. Then one morning in November of 2021, Karen entered her bathroom as usual. “I came in to wash my face and brush my teeth in that sink, and there is the diamond,” she recalls. “There’s no way humanly you can explain it. I am convinced God put that diamond right between the faucet and the soap box, and it looked at me just like it was smiling at me perfectly. I just said, ‘Praise the Lord!’ It was so perfect, how he wanted me to see it, how he had arranged it. That itty bitty diamond sat right between the faucet and my soap dish, looking at me. Wow. It was miraculous.”

After this experience, Karen said she settled on a new philosophy: “God is concerned about what concerns me, and how big it is or how little is it makes no difference. He is concerned about what concerns us.

“He knew I didn’t worship this diamond or anything else I have. It’s all his. I know everything belongs to him, but he wanted to strengthen my faith at that point, and I was just overwhelmed with joy.”

But that’s not the end of the story: Karen returned to the Event Center and told some co-workers how she found the diamond after it had been missing for so long.

“I told the whole story about how God returned that diamond to me, so perfectly. God knew I’d do that because he wanted those girls to see that he is real. He loves them. I just really believe God used it in their lives. Yeah, that’s a very, very important part of the story.”