One Little Old Lady

She stands alone at the front of the sparsely filled church. Her weathered face and small, wrinkly hands that shake tell of years spent in the suns of Sudan. Wisdom is etched in her features and is accentuated by the glimmering deep blue wrap she wears; her Sunday finest, fitting for the daughter of a King.
Suddenly, with words much stronger than her small frame should allow, the old woman lifts her voice to sing in a language indistinguishable to me. The song fills the room in high, shrill tones whistled through her many missing teeth. She stands alone, her face wrinkled in joy, and slowly those who understand softly sing along, unwilling to join the old woman, or perhaps simply afraid to stand beside a princess praising her King.
The indistinguishable words continue, intermittently broken by her raspy cough, but nothing will hinder this display of adoration; her boldness knows no shame, nor should it for a child of the King is not afraid.
I watch the old woman, her voice painfully off key to my ears, and I wonder if all the guitars that are tuned and all the pianos played this day will match the praise that I have heard. There are no worship teams, no bands, no projectors, no maestros here to exhilarate the senses. There is only one little wrinkled old woman standing alone, singing through missing teeth, in a language I don’t understand, to a King who is surely in our midst, smiling his approval.

Mark 12:43 ...Truely I tell you, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They all gave of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything-all she had to live on.