Yes..you can!

My Alia has been taking piano lessons from me (very sporadically) for the past year or two, and right now she's learning to play "Canon in D." Now, this entry is actually not about piano lessons, but about a deeper lesson I've learned. Some very sweet feelings have been floating around in my head all day, so I needed to come and record them tonight.

First, let's flash back to when I was nine. I heard the song "Fur Elise" on a McDonald's commercial, and I begged my mom to get the music and teach me how to play it by ear. Measure by measure, my mom sat by me and patiently taught me how to play it until I sounded like I actually knew what I was doing. Playing that one song gave me such confidence--I have LOVED the piano ever since.

Alia saw "Canon" in her music book, and when I told her it was her dad's favorite, she asked if I thought she would ever be able to learn it. "Sure," I told her. "I'll teach it to you like my mom taught me 'Fur Elise'. "

Okay, quick jump to a picture of Alia at the piano before school this morning:

Each time I sat with her to show her a measure, she'd say, "I can't learn this. It's too hard. I'll never be able to play this whole song." I'd convince her to at least try, and then she'd learn one measure, then two, and she'd still protest that there was NO WAY she could possibly do even one more note.

Well, we're still working on the final two thirds of the song, and we haven't even touched upon the whole "smoothing it out" bit, but take a listen:

Isn't she doing such a good job? The best part is that after she learns a new section, she spends the next few hours giving me spontaneous kisses and hugs and saying, "Thank you for teaching me, Mom! Thank you." She's elated by this new skill, and she gives me so much in return.

All right, well, here's the point of this blog. I feel like in our lives, our Father in Heaven shows us glimpses of what we can become--either through someone's example, a thought that pops into our head, or by the desires we have to become better. Just as Alia thought there was NO WAY she could learn such a hard song, I sometimes catch myself saying, "There's not a chance that I can become...(you fill in the blank)." Whether it's developing patience with the chaos of everyday life, rising to a challenge that meets you head on, learning to relax when life is anything but relaxing, or receiving the power to do something totally beyond our abilities, it takes faith in the Lord to believe we can become something wonderful.

That is when He sits down with us and says, "Yes...you can." And the tutoring begins. He shows us, measure by measure, grace for grace, how we can become more than we are and more than we think we can be. When you finally see yourself starting to "get it," all you want to do is praise Him, thank Him, and say, "Thank you for teaching me. Thank you." That is what I hear in my mind now whenever I hear Alia playing Canon.