My First Nauvoo Miracle

June 19, 2021 - How God used a small wooden drum to teach me about His love.

A wild Sister Whiting in her natural habitat - sitting so sweetly atop her cajon drumming and singing and smiling and sweating under the Nauvoo summer sky.

This poem is a love letter/homage to one of my favorite Nauvoo memories - playing the Cajon. It’s one of my earlier poems so it is quite simple but I consider that simplicity to be fitting, seeing as a cajon is also a beautifully simple instrument

A cajon is a small wooden drum, played by sitting on top of it and hitting it with your hands and fingers and sometimes even mallets or sticks. A quick Google search just now revealed to me that it originated in Peru, which is random but dope in my opinion. It is used in one of our numbers, “The Fox”, where we as missionaries formed a lil band and sang a song while the Peterson Brothers clogged their hearts out on stage.

Elder Kropf (left) and Elder McQuiston (right)

One of my good friends, Elder Kropf, saw how fascinated I was with the cajon and taught me how to play it, a favor for which I am forever in his debt. A real Homie G move. Awesome guy. I practiced constantly, doing the rhythm on my lap with my hands and even tapping it out with my toes in spare moments. On the first night I was scheduled to play, my opening night, my big debut, a storm came in and our outdoor show was nearly canceled.

I wish I could say that I handled it well, but I almost had a literal breakdown.

Lol.

What can I say? I was really excited to play the cajon.

I won’t spoil the ending for you, I’ll let you deduce what happened from the poem, but suffice it to say that everything worked out just the way it was supposed to. God, ever the Master Composer, orchestrated a series of events that taught me a potent and powerful lesson about who He is and what He cares about.

Enjoy :)

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God cares about my cajon. 

A small, insignificant wooden box. 
A simple rhythm done to a simple song. 

And yet, 
He cares. 
He heard my little prayer and He answered it with a miracle. 

A small indoor stage, 
A packed audience, 
And pure bliss atop a small, insignificant wooden box. 

God cares about our "cajones". 
And I'm forever grateful that He cares about us, too. 
Take your worries to the Savior, as small, insignificant and simple as they may seem, and I promise that His solution will bring you the bliss you are desperately searching for. 

"Yea, thou art merciful unto thy children when they cry unto thee, to be heard of thee and not of men, and thou wilt hear them."
Alma 33: 8