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Dear Beloveds, On Sunday night, my four adult children gathered for dinner in New York City. They sent me a photo of themselves after dinner, and it made my heart so happy to see them all together. I wake up each morning feeling so blessed to be their mother; they have made me a better person and have taught me so much. I treasure each and every one of them for who they are and what joy they bring to the table. The one thing that am so grateful for is the love and appreciation they have for one another. Each so different, they bring out the “good” in one another in such different ways. To hear them laugh with one another is one of the happiest sounds that reach my ears as a mother. I wanted to share with you a memory I had of my two eldest children, Elijah and Hannah, when they were in middle school. As some of you know, our children were raised with music. Each of them studied the piano and also a string instrument, with some flute, guitar, and drums thrown in here and there. Our house was always filled with the sounds of music floating through the air, and we were forever driving to music competitions, national theory exams, recitals, and countless performances. I recalled one competition where all four of our kids were in, and Elijah and Hannah happened to be competing in the same category. His teacher was extremely confident that he would win that day; his piece was advanced, he had played it with an orchestra, knew it backwards and forwards and played it flawlessly. His teacher was bragging to the other teachers about how well he played the difficult piece. Hannah was a little nervous about her piece, but she was prepared. The time came to compete, and Hannah was up first. Her nerves got the best of her, and she stumbled a bit in the piece, but she lost her momentum and began to stumble through other places of her music. You could see her face at the piano had turned red, and then ashen white out of embarrassment. After she finished her piece, she returned to her assigned seat completely shaken with her head hung low, ready to cry. Then it was Elijah’s turn to play; he sat down at the piano and began. It was beautiful—and then, strangely, his fingers began to skip over the notes in the most unusual way, and he too started to stumble. He finished his piece, stood up to bow, but I saw his face had a little grin on it---- odd, for someone who had made silly mistakes on a piece he knew so well. After the competition was over, all the students gathered together in a group to huddle and to talk with their teachers. Another teacher came to me and said, “What happened to your son today? We thought he was the sure winner!” I walked over to the kids’ circle and saw Hannah and Elijah talking to each other. Hannah was saying, “I don’t know what happened, I just got so thrown when I made the first mistake, and then, it all fell apart!” and Elijah laughed and comforted her and remarked, “Oh, I know! Isn’t it funny? The same thing happened to me, and I just blew my entire piece! Oh well! No trophies for us this time around!” and they had a great laugh together, hugged, and shook it off. I could see Hannah felt a weight had been lifted off her shoulders. Later, I approached Elijah, and looked him in the eye. I gently asked him what happened, and wondered how he could have made the peculiar mistakes he did when he knew the piece so well. He looked earnestly at me and said, “Mom, I saw how devastated Hannah was when she blew her piece. She was so heartbroken. I made the mistakes on my piece on purpose so she wouldn’t feel so badly about herself.” At first, I was shocked; upset he had just thrown the competition out of love for his sister. Out of love for his sister. I could not be mad at this child. He followed up quickly with me imploring, “If you ever tell Hannah that I did that, I will deny it. Please, don’t tell her.” It’s been almost 20 years, so I think it’s ok that I tell this story now. A story of love and sacrifice that God asks us to do daily for our those whom we love, for those in this world who need love. “A new command I give you: Love one another as I have loved you...” (John 13). My kids make me a better person because they are always teaching me about love. And I will forever be grateful. With great love for you, Pastor Grace
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