“I’m Getting Ready to Leave This World”

For those who cannot hear the music, let me assure you that this is played back at actual speed and he didn’t miss a note.  I rather believe, though I couldn’t keep up, that he didn’t miss hitting any of the piano’s 88 keys at least twice.  He’s an amazingly gifted man, who shared his gifts with the world.  He won the Singing News Award for his playing, ten years in a row, until it was renamed the Anthony Burger Award to make room for others.

When he suddenly left this world, he did so in a way many, including myself, envy… he was playing the piano for a cruise audience, praising Jesus through his fingers, when suddenly the music stopped.  “We Shall Behold Him“, the song he was playing here, gave way in an instant to “I Bowed on My Knees” (asl) as he arrived there.

As awesome as he was, it was his first two years that cause the thoughtful to say, “Ahhh…God did this”, and leaves the skeptic with no room for argument.  He was 8 months old when a fall caused his tender baby hands to be covered with 3rd degree burns.  He was so fragile that they carried him around on a pillow for a year while he had treatments to help him heal.  Those little fingers couldn’t have grown up to the point of tying shoes, much less what he did with a piano.

With God, all things are possible – especially the impossible.