“Whoever doesn’t quit piano lessons, gets to keep the piano.”  That was the deal my folks made with us when my sister and I started taking lessons.  Our first teacher was the church organist at the church my dad pastored in Fern Park, Florida.  I think the lessons went along fine.  I didn’t love the practice time, but I always enjoyed learning new music.  My sister kept at it too and seemed to do great.  Before long though, dad was being called elsewhere and we had to move on from Fern Park.  Our piano teacher encouraged my folks to keep on with the lessons….especially for my sister, because she was the “one with the natural talent.” 

We did keep on with lessons….or at least I did.  I’m not sure why I hung in there, because I knew I didn’t have that special ability that I needed.  But anyway, I plugged along.  I remember my next teacher was Davy Crocket.  He worked at a music store in the local mall and mom would drop me off and I would have a 30 minute lesson every week.  But then we moved again, and it was time to find a new teacher.  My next teacher owned a funeral home and we would meet on the second floor of the funeral home for our lessons.  I say “our” lessons, because she did group lessons.  She had a room with about six electric pianos and each piano had a headset with it.  You would plug in your headset and practice until all of the sudden the teacher would “pop in” on your channel and listen to your songs! It was kind of freaky, but it worked pretty well. 

It was about this time, 9th grade, that I became our church pianist.  Our church was very small and had one little old lady that would take her pillow up to the piano bench every Sunday and play.  Due to some family issues, she had to be gone for several months.  My dad asked me how many hymns I could play and I told him I could play at least two.  So we sang those two hymns every Sunday until I learned more.

Fast forward 30 years.  My sister and I are home with our famiies visiting our folks.  We are discussing all the directions that life has taken us and somehow start talking about how I got to keep the piano because I kept up with the lessons…..you know….even though my sister was the one with the natural ability.  My dad said we had it wrong.  It wasn’t my sister with the natural ability, it was me.  When we were about to leave Fern Park, my piano teacher told my folks that whatever they did, they needed to keep ME in piano lessons because I had a lot of natural ability!  I was shocked!  I think my mouth literally dropped open.

Have you ever heard of a Paradigm shift?  That’s what happened to me.  It was like the view of my world completely shifted.  I realized for the first time, that it wasn’t just “dumb luck” that I kept at the piano playing….I kept at it because I loved it….I was made to express myself through music….that maybe I really did have a gift for playing the piano.  I understood now, why I could always accompany someone singing a solo in church and be able to follow their lead….I could speed up, or slow down as they sang, I could almost anticipate HOW they were going to sing a song…..it was that ability that God had given me.  And it was finally o.k. to recognize it and be thankful for it.  At about this same time, I had also begun writing my first few songs and it released in me that fear that I’d also had deep inside that it was “dumb luck” that I stumbled into this songwriting thing.  I could dare to hope that maybe God had planted that gift inside me as well.

Maybe it sounds crazy to have let a little comment like our teacher made 30 years ago, be something that could affect me so much.  I never realized how much it did, until things changed and the world shifted.  It made me realize the power of our words.  We have the ability to build people up by our words and maybe build up their belief in themselves.  (There is a wonderful book all about that by Phyllis Littauer called ”Silver Boxes.”) Belief is a really big thing.

I’ll play on that piano this morning before I go to work.  Both of my girls are playing on that piano.  I wonder who gets it next?