Piano Lessons

Rebecca was one of three, her sisters Ramona and Roberta, sat quietly waiting for their piano lessons to be over with. They were triplets, and Mrs. Salvino had agreed to teach all three of them to play the piano, their lessons were on Tuesday afternoons, after school. Ramona and Roberta liked to play the piano, and they were pretty good at it, but they were also anxious to get home. The lessons always made the day seem so long. Rebecca’s lesson always took longer than the others. And, she always went last, so she could take her time. She didn’t learn any slower than the others, but she enjoyed her lessons more than the others. She was enveloped by each piece of music she’d play. It was as if each song took her away to somewhere else. Mrs. Salvino didn’t mind at all, she always looked forward to when Rebecca would play for her, but sometimes Ramona and Roberta would think that enough was enough, and want desperately to go home, but, they waited.
Yesterday Ramona wasn’t feeling well, so she didn’t go to school or to her piano lesson. She’d been home in bed instead. When Rebecca came home from their piano lessons, she was all bubbly and couldn’t wait to run up to Ramona’s room and tell her all about the days excitement, which for her was mainly centered around their piano lessons. While Roberta slowly came through the door, their mom could see that she was coming down with whatever Ramona had. So she was shuffled off to her bed. As she came through the door to their bedroom, she could hear Rebecca running at the mouth about the new piece Mrs. Salvino had given them to play today.
Roberta shouted at her, “Becky, shut up already. Do you really think that Ramona feels like hearing all that? Do you think anybody else in the world besides you really cares about that? It’s only a song Becky, it’s only a song. No big deal. So just shut up.” Rebecca wasn’t all that surprised at Robert’s attitude toward the music, “She just doesn’t understand music the way I do,” she thought, “but, what’s with this shut up stuff? Mom never lets us talk to anyone that way, especially not to each other.”
Ramona agreed inside about the music, but she did think that Roberta was more than a little rude. She told Rebecca, “Maybe it’s because she’s just not feeling well, I’ve felt rotten all day myself.”
Rebecca smiled at her and walked out of the room. It wasn’t the first time she felt offended for liking music so much, and she was sure it wouldn’t be the last. When she went to bed that night, she wondered all the way into her dream, “Why doesn’t anyone like music as much as I do? Why can’t I share what I feel inside with anyone? What’s wrong with people?”
This morning at the breakfast table Rebecca listened to Dad telling Mom about the meetings he had at work yesterday, when all of a sudden she recognized the words he was using sounded strangely familiar. He was talking about an ad campaign he’d thought up that he thought was just dynamite, and no one else could see what he saw. The words he questioned her mother with rang through her ears like an echo, “What’s wrong with people? Why can’t I show them what I mean? Why can’t anyone else grasp these concepts like I do? Is it too complicated, or what?” Her mother just smiled and poured him some more coffee. Rebecca thought, “Mom doesn’t know either.” She wondered if anyone ever felt the same on the inside about anything. “Do people ever really communicate anything to each other?” she asked her father. As he slurped down his last gulp of coffee he nodded his head, and added, “Sometimes, but I think it’s quite by mistake.” And off he ran with his briefcase in his hand and a scowl on his face.
As her mother cleared the table of dirty dishes, she sensed that Rebecca had a few questions for her, so she sat down next to her and asked, “What’s on your mind, honey? Has Daddy troubled you?”
“No, no, Mom, I just wondered if everyone has trouble communicating like I seem to,” she replied. “What trouble are you talking about?” her mother asked and brushed a few crumbs off the table and into her hand. “Well, Mom,” she started, “Mona and Bert don’t seem to get the same thing out of the songs we play at Mrs. Salvino’s house as I do. To them, they’re just songs, to me, it’s a whole new world that’s just invited me in with the introduction notes. It’s like I can feel the song being played on the inside of me too. Do you understand, Mom?”
“I understand your love for music a lot more than I understand your father’s campaign ideas,” she chuckled and then added, “I used to love to play the piano myself as a girl, but, now I guess I’m just too busy to take the time.”
Rebecca insisted, “No, Mom, if you understand how I feel about it, you’d make the time and something else would fall by the wayside, not the piano. Maybe no one else in the world feels this much love for music, maybe I’m the only one.”
Her mom held her hand and said, “Honey, maybe you won’t be able to communicate this feeling to anyone else until they begin to feel it, too. Maybe your father won’t be able to share his ideas with anyone until someone else begins to see things the way he does. I know myself, that I can’t express the joy of Jesus to anyone else, unless they’ve already begun to feel His love and forgiveness themselves. I can tell them and tell them, until I’m exasperated and I can try in my own way to show them. But, until they step out in faith and inquire of God themselves, they can’t know what I’m talking about. Even your father, God knows I’ve tried to live a godly life before him, and to show him God’s love in every way I can think of, but, he doesn’t know that joy, that peace and comfort, the love of Jesus that I know. Sometimes I think that if I can’t communicate this to my own spouse, who can I tell? Who can I reach? But, even though I sometimes feel like a failure, like I can’t get through to people, I’ll never stop trying. The joy is too great. Becky, the joy of music is so great to you; you’ll never stop playing that piano. The joy of Jesus is so great to me; I’ll never stop telling the story, that precious story of what Jesus did for me. Am I communicating this to you, honey?” she ended with a smile. Rebecca felt like her eyes were just opened. This is how Mom feels about Jesus, oh how great her love must be. Just imagine feeling this way about somebody. I’m gonna check this out.
“Well, Mom, I’m going to go upstairs and do a little reading before I go to school, maybe you should pray for Mona and Bert, they really look like they feel bad,” she said. Her mother laughed and said, “You don’t think I…” and she paused for just a second, “I think I will, dear. I think I will.”
Up the steps went Rebecca, with an air of excitement about her. She grabbed her mother’s Bible off the bedside stand and took it into the bathroom and began to read it. She wanted to find this love for herself. She read until her mom shouted that the bus was coming, and she left it there to come back to after school.
Later, as her mother went upstairs to check on Ramona and Roberta, she saw that her Bible was on the bathroom sink. A look of puzzlement disappeared as she realized how it got there. She skipped with glee into the girl’s room and found them awake. They were sure surprised to see their mom skipping, so of course, she stopped at once. They all laughed. Roberta asked, “What’s up?” Their mother sat down on the side of her bed and said with tears in her eyes, “I know an old story that I want to tell you…”
They all got comfortable as Mom started again, a story which she’d told them so many times before, a story that filled her with joy every time she thought of it. Maybe her communication to these two daughters of hers would be about as clear as Rebecca trying to share a song with them, but, the joy was too great, so great she couldn’t keep it inside.
Communicating Jesus is more than just a skill, more than just a talent, it’s an anointing. I can’t share anything with you that you don’t receive, but I’ll never stop trying. It might just take time…..