As an elementary student, I aspired to great things in life. I never dreamed about becoming the president. And really, I never even dreamed about performing my regularly made-up dance routines to Amy Grant in front of millions. Instead, I aspired to be the "mother" during recess when the third-grade girls would play house.
They always gave me the role of "sister." I hated being the sister. Granted, it was better than the poor girl who received the role of dog (although she seemed to enjoy this role a little too much), but it wasn't the mom. There was one girl in particular who was always mom and early on I had my plans to take over her role.
I'm not entirely vindictive. I didn't hire a hit man or anything, but I decided that I was going to plead my case in front of all the third grade girls as to why I should be mom. I remember standing in front of my mirror at home practicing my speech, as if everything in my young life hindered on those carefully chosen words. I don't remember one of my reasons, but I do remember how passionately I felt about this need for change.
The next recess I was a nervous wreck. I knew standing up to the current "mother" would be a David and Goliath type scenario, but I was ready for the battle. As the regular parts were being divvied out, I took my stand, made my speech, and the current mother responded:
"Whatever."
She became the dog, the dog became the sister, and I became, in all of it's glory, the mother of the game. It was glorious, and frankly I couldn't believe it actually happened.
I remained mother for a short time. The other girls complained I made them do too many chores that weren't "normal." For example, I made my "kids" practice their pretend instruments and, of course, they were required to make up songs for me that they had to sing on a regular basis. If they wanted to make them up in a group, that was Okay too. What was so abnormal about that? Spoiled kids.
It's true that from a young age, music has been an important part of my life, whether I wanted it to be or not. I started playing piano in first grade, though the I was very apprehensive the night before my first lesson. I remember laying in bed and thinking about a woman who came to chapel and played Three Blind Mice in such a remarkable way that as much as I really didn't want to start playing, I figured if I could play Three Blind Mice as good as that lady someday, it might just all be worth it.
Once I hit Jr. High, however, I was ready to be finished with piano. I argued with my parents that it was important I focused on basketball. I actually told them in 7th grade I needed to focus on basketball. Thankfully my aspirations morphed from my third grade desires to take over role-playing into the desire to be a college athlete. The problem was that this particular dream was as far stretched as they go. It's quite possible that I spent more time on the floor of the court than I did actually running the ball down the court, due to my long, lanky and very clumsy legs.
But the rule was: no piano, no basketball. So, I kept playing...both.
Amazingly, I made the varsity basketball team as a freshman, securing my dreams of playing basketball in college, or so I thought. The problem for me was reality. I rarely lived in it. The reality was that our team maybe won one game. The reality was that I was 5'10 as a freshman and the coaches more than likely put me on the team with high hopes that I would block shots under the basket. The reality was that I fell over more than I did block. The reality was that I probably looked like Olive Oil attempting to block a bunch of Pop-Eyes.
But I kept improving because I wanted to improve. I couldn't say the same for my piano playing, which necessarily continued. There was a time that I was actually embarrassed to tell people that I could play piano. One could not wear a jersey AND be musical. Duh.
As I got older, though, my opportunities to play piano publicly became more and more frequent, as did the weekend competitions and recitals, but given the opportunity, I would have quit.
My freshman year in college, I had a remarkably painful experience. I had planned to try out for the college basketball team. I knew I'd sit on the bench for at least the first year, but the idea of being on the team excited me. Soon after making this decision, however, I blew out my knee and was told I would not play again competitively.
So, after all the years of complaining and fighting and assuring my parents that I would make them proud as an athlete, I became a music major. My decision came more from what I knew I could do rather than what I found pleasure in. However, for the first couple of months, my world was opened in a new way to the beauty of all different kinds of music. I accompanied soloists, some were easier to be with than others (there are some real divas in the music world), and played almost every day finding a new passion that I had not experienced before with this instrument.
But I had to take several weeks off of school for two different knee surgeries. When I returned, I faced the prospect of getting from class to class...on crutches...for at least two months. I was incredibly down and incredibly irresponsible. I didn't show up for my music classes and many times left my soloists without an accompanist. Instead, I'd sit in my room pouting, reciting over and over the "whoa-is-me's." I was pretty pathetic.
I received a phone call from my music professor, toward the end my freshman year, informing me that I had lost my music scholarship and would no longer be required to play for the college . I did, however, have to play one last time in chapel. The call came on a Monday and chapel was on Friday.
I reluctantly showed up to chapel and sat on the bench playing the intro to the college hymn. We sang through one verse when the speaker stopped me and the entire student body and proclaimed, "Let's sing that at a more...singable....speed." And I started over, sweating with embarrassment.
I hobbled out of the auditorium on my crutches and sat in the back of the chapel crying. I looked out the windows at the beautiful view of the mountains and said out loud, "God, I will never play piano again." I couldn't play competitive sports and I was finished with the music.
And I stuck to that promise for almost ten years. I turned down weddings and other events and only reluctantly played once or twice at our church in Georgia when the accompanist was out of town.
When we moved back to St. Louis in 2007, there was a need for a pianist at the church where my husband was called to be the pastor. I wanted to help, mostly because I knew the church needed someone to play piano, but I was so rusty. Over the next several years, though, my fingers began warming up and muscle memory slowly returned. Even with terrible hymn intros that fell into minor keys and back into major ones, I began to have a renewed passion for playing and slowly fell in love again with the instrument and the times of personal worship that I experienced while playing.
Several months ago, two violinist-friends approached me about doing a concert with them. When I first sat down at my piano with Bach staring back at me (we hadn't been friends since high school), two things went through my mind: this is impossible and I promised God I would never play again.
I literally got on my knees in front of the piano and asked God to help me learn this music only if He wanted me to play it.
This past weekend, I sat on the stage fifteen minutes before the concert. I was trying to play it cool, but my nerves were manic. I thought my head might fall off. I literally felt like I needed to steady it, but I realized how foolish I might look holding my neck, so I put my hands down and tried to relax.
I began talking with a friend, and our conversation steered away from music for a few minutes as we began talking about our desire for the salvation of particular friends and family who did not know the Lord. She made the comment that it's easy to just stop praying because at times their change of heart seems almost unrealistic. It seems impossible. I understood her sentiment.
As I sat on the bench with Bach in front of me, playing for sweet family and friends, I was so overcome with the reality of what God can do. I was playing in a concert with two incredibly talented violinists, for heaven's sake! God took an ungrateful piano student who became a depressed college student, swearing off music for the rest of my life, and brought me to a piano bench in a small chapel many years later, soaking up each and every note of Bach and Schubert that the Lord allowed my fingers to play. A mere hour before, I empathized with a friend over my own neglect to pray for impossibilities, and yet I stood by the piano having completed what I thought would be impossible.
I sat in my car after the concert and wept. I wept out of gratitude to the Lord, knowing full well that I don't deserve so many of the blessings he has given me. I wept over my sick mother who sat with a smile on her face the whole concert and whose fragile hug afterward said what her words could not: I'm proud of you. And I wept over my weak faith as I resonated with my friend's lack of desire to ask God for that which seems impossible. I have relationships that seem too broken to go before the cross, unbelievers who seem too disinterested for me to keep praying for their salvation, and a mother whose incurable disease is so painful to watch that at times I give up on begging God for mercy in her life.
And yet, God is a God that does the impossible. He is a God who heals and restores broken relationships, He is a God who brings the most unexpected into a right relationship with Himself, and He is a God that provides peace and shows mercy to His beloved children. I identify so closely with the father who cried out to Jesus, "I believe; help my unbelief!"
He is a God who made my rusty fingers work, even after promising Him I would never do so again, so that on one particular night I might be lifted up in worship and humbled by my lack of faith.
We ended our concert playing Jesus Loves Me. There was no rehearsing this; we just worshiped. The simplicity of these words expressed musically were more profound to me in those few moments than they have been in a long, long time.
Jesus loves me this I know
For the bible tells me so
Little ones to Him belong
They are weak but He is strong
Yes, Jesus loves me.
Yes, Jesus loves me.
Yes, Jesus loves me,
The Bible tells me so.
(The impossible becoming a reality for me)
(My defensive stance never got much better than this. Perhaps the torn knee was merciful)
