Deep Waters

Sometimes the closest people in our lives can have the biggest influence on our goals, both positive or negative.  We all want advice, but the best advice is supportive but yet provides us with direction.

This story I heard somewhere is powerful and enlightening. There was a famous composer and pianist who was scheduled to play in a concert hall. A huge event with black tuxedos and long evening dresses for the high society of this city.

There too, was a mother, who wanted so much for her nine year old son to learn how to play classical piano, but she couldn’t get her son to practice on a regular basis. She thought, that if her son could hear this composer play, it would interest him in wanting to spend more time at the piano.

As the mother began to engage in conversation with some of the other woman there in the hall, her son became quite restless and when he saw no one was looking took the opportunity to tour the hall. This venture brought him up to the stage, and to the very piano that the great composer would be playing in just a few short minutes.

So, he sat down, made himself comfortable and started to play chopsticks which brought the attention of the crowd to the little boy on the stage. They were annoyed, and began shouting. “Get that boy off the stage, who’d bring a kid that young in here, where’s his mother”.

Backstage the composer overheard the sounds coming from his piano, as well as the comments from the audience and grabbed his coat and rushed towards the stage.

He knew what was happening. Without a word of announcement, he stooped over and behind the boy, reached around both sides and began to play chopsticks along with the boy. As the two of them played the composer kept whispering in the boy’s ear, “Keep going, don’t quit, keep playing, you can do it”.

They played for fifteen minutes, just the two of them and nothing else mattered. Yes, it was that encouragement that pushed the boy forward and he passed the test of faith in himself.

We are all tested in life, our personal life and our spiritual life. But if we first, reflect on our goals with the help of God, then we act with faith that God is with us, we will pass the test of life. As God himself tells us, “When we go through deep waters, I will be with you”