Oh... My... God... - The Story of My Taylor Guitar

Please don't ask me why, but it never occurred to me until just recently to post the story of how I received my Taylor Guitar. However, it has now occurred to me to do such a thing, and here I am doing it. Now, I do thoroughly enjoy every opportunity I get to tell the story, especially considering the greatness and testimony of it. The best though, is people's reactions. When I started telling it to some friends recently, one interrupted me at the beginning and said, "Don't tell me you got a Taylor! If you got a Taylor I WILL SPIT!" I'm still waiting to see her spit. Such is the greatness of the guitar, and its story that this is the type of reaction I have almost come to expect (although not to such an interesting challenge of a reaction, I think she expected me to say no).

So, why not start at the beginning of my musicianship as a guitar player? Don't worry, it's not that long.
I started playing guitar in the winter of 2002. I had just started going to Hillstreams, and everyone cool played guitar. Being sixteen years old, and wanting to be cool like these people, and being generally interested in this whole guitar malarky (credit to Mark Hardy on the word malarky by the way!), I went to my grandfather, who is a guitar player and asked if I could start to learn on his guitar. He was happy to oblige. I would go next door (where he lived at the time) and sit in the basement with his 1952 Gretsch Chet Atkins Tennessean (which by the way is an awesome antic). It was easy enough on the fingers, so I could play for a couple hours at a time and be fine, and I did. I started writing when I could first put two chords together. My first song was about waiting for the cable guy to come fix your cable so you wouldn't have to miss all your favourite shows (it was a terrible song). I then found out that a friend of mine had sold his guitar to a local guitar shop, it was a ten year old acoustic made by a company called Simon & Patrick (local to Quebec). It was a good enough guitar for the time. Simon & Patrick's guitars are for the most part low to middle end, and I loved that guitar and played it all the time. I got the first hundred dollars from my cousin Melissa who was oh so kind to do it, even though I offered to pay her back. My parents couldn't afford it at the time. So I put that down and made $50 payments every month until I had payed the whole thing. It was only about $300. After a couple months though, my dad got real tired of driving me to the guitar store over and over again just to make these little payments. So my parents bought it out. I had that guitar for about three and a half years. I was one day hanging out and playing guitar with my oh so wonderful friend John Gillard, and he asked to see my guitar. I handed it to him, where he looked it over, and discovered a major flaw. A flaw that the guitar had come upon over time that would crush my heart and cause me to give up playing that guitar for fear of having it break in my hands while playing. You see, the neck of the guitar was lifting, quite significantly off the body of it. It was quite bad for the guitar, and the pressure that the strings put on the neck would only make it worse over time. To get it fixed would be expensive, and pointless as the cost of the procedure would be more than the final worth of the guitar, it already had an amateurishly repaired crack in the top that was totally visible, and ugly. It was just over all, in crap-ass shape. So I loosened the strings and put it in its case, not having any other thing I could really do.
For seven months I had no guitar to play. In this time I researched guitars, prayed for God to do something, talked to friends, and mourned the loss of my six stringed friend. Now, I will NOT say that this was seven months for the worse. God taught me so so much in this time. I had learnt to come to depend on my guitar to express myself and push forth in worship. As I took time away from my guitar, I learnt that I could worship without having to play. I grew with God in deeper levels of worship. It was changed my worship life.
Now, if you know guitars, then you know that Taylor makes excellent quality guitars that are of the top calibre of guitar brands. Well, they have different series of guitars, each more expensive then the last. From the 100 series to the 900 series. The first series of guitar that is of quality is the 300 series. I prayed and prayed and sowed for a 314ce.

One Week.
One Month.
Two Months.
Three Months.
Four Months.
Five Months.
Six Months.
Seven Months.

Now, as cool as it would've been, the guitar did not appear out of thin air. Even better, it was the result of a fiendishly clever, loving, Godly, handsome, and already mentioned gifted man's hard work along side with the contributions of many friends and my family. Mr John Thomas Gillard, my guitar hero. He had, behind my back, with the help of many close and loving friends and family members been researching the guitar I wanted, looking at listings and praying for God to show him to make this happen. It was a faith stretcher for him, but it ended up being a faith grower as well. Sufficed to say, it was very much that for me.
So seven months had passed. It was just a normal day. I was coming home from work and just entered the house. Tired, a little frustrated, and wanting to shower and nap, I proceed to my bedroom. Now, I forget to mention that I had told my friends about a dream I had had where I came home and found a guitar on my bed with a red bow on it.
I walk in to my room. This is me:
My exact words in this picture are "What is this?"
I was in shock. Especially when I saw the emblem on the side of the case that looked like this:

BA BA BA! (not sure if that is the right way to phoneticize that sound effect, heh)

Now, I am a man, and I don't cry, like ever. But I wept. Openly and like a child. There is videotape of it. Yes, I was secretly videotaped. I wept and wept in disbelief in shock.
"How did this happen?" I asked, for I knew my parents could so NOT have afforded it.
"Johnny did this," my mom said.
"Johnny did this?"
"Yes, Johnny arranged it all with your friends."
The pieces were starting to fall into place, my mom had recently cleaned up my room and cleared the phone list without reason to me, which were strange and uncommon things to do, especially without explanation.
"Read the card," mom says.
I open the envelope on top the guitar and begin to read the card, only causing me to weep more in reading the little notes and signatures of some of my closest friends. I sent Johnny a test message saying I need to see him PRONTO (and called him a jerk).
And it was mine. It was better than a 314ce. It was a 314ce L7. A limited edition. Instead of the body wood being a common one used in the 300 series it is a rare wood used only in the limited edition, called Tasmanian Blackwood. It was beautiful (check out my facebook pictures of it). I talked to Johnny the next day. He told me more about how it all came together. It was owned by a former worship leader. He bought it new a few months before he sold it to Johnny.
This guitar is everything I've ever wanted in a guitar. It is mine, truly. I know it may sound silly, but I really do feel a kindred of spirits with this guitar. When I look at it, when I hold it, when I play it, I know it is mine. I know it was made for me. I know that there is something about it, something in it, that is also in me. It is anointed. It is holy. It is a warfare instrument. It is a symbol of joy and power and worship and God's goodness and glory. It's beauty alone is awe-inspiring. That was September 26th, 2006, one of the best of my life, and one I will not soon forget.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the story of my Taylor guitar.