Don't quit, keep playing

I constantly feel like I am not good enough. Not a good enough Mom, wife, daughter or friend. This is exactly the reminder I needed today.

A mother, wishing to encourage her son’s progress at the piano, bought tickets for a Paderewski performance. They found their seats near the front of the concert hall. The mother found a friend to talk to and the boy slipped away.

When performance time arrived, the spotlights came on, and only then did the Mother notice the boy on the piano bench innocently picking out “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.” The master appeared on the stage and quickly moved to the keyboard. “Don’t quit—keep playing,” he whispered to the boy. Leaning over, Paderewski reached down with his left hand and began filling in a bass part. Soon his right arm reached around the other side, encircling the child, to improvise a delightful obligato. Together, the old master and the young novice held the crowd mesmerized.

In our lives, unpolished though we may be, it is the master who surrounds us and whispers in our ear time and time again: “Don’t quit—keep playing.” And as we do, he augments and supplements until a work of amazing beauty is created.