Thankful

I started taking piano lessons from a talented friend last year.  I am not much of a pianist, but I love music.  I went to her house every couple weeks, played her beautiful piano, and then came home and practiced the best I could on my keyboard.  I've had it for a long time, and it has served me well in my various apartment homes.  I soon realized, though, that it wasn't adequate for what I needed--there is just too much difference between a piano and my sweet old keyboard.  


So Jenny, my teacher, tells me (a couple of times, actually) about this sweet old piano teacher she once had who bore powerful testimony that if you ever need a piano, you just have to pray for one, and God will help you get one.  I am a skeptic about many things, not excluding divinely delivered pianos, and so I smiled and rolled my eyes at the faith of her old piano teacher.


But I did want a piano.  And over the next several months, as I felt my frustrations mounting about different things in my life, most notably my body's seeming inability to conceive a child, I occasionally flippantly tacked "Heavenly Father, if I can't have a baby, at least let me have a piano" on the end of my prayers.  


I didn't think much of it or pursue my piano desire (where would we put it? how would we pay for it? would the neighbors lynch us?) until mid-June.  One Sunday, snap--just like that--I decided I was getting a piano.  I spent hours on Craigslist, looked at every piano listing, and made phone calls and sent texts and emails about pianos in my price range.  Jay patiently drove me all over San Antonio so I could "test drive" piano after piano.  Within four days, I had found the one.  It was beautiful--a massive 70+ year old, solid, dark wood, ivory keyed upright.  We bonded with the young LDS couple selling it and made arrangements to pick it up the next evening.


The next day, a few hours before picking up the piano, Jay and I were both home: Jay doing the dishes, me dinking around on my computer.  I was suddenly seized by the urge to take a pregnancy test.  I felt silly about it (I had gotten the too-familiar negative result just the day before), but 5 minutes later, I was staring at a tiny "positive" sign on the little stick on the counter.  


Later that night, putting a hand on my beautiful new old piano and another hand on the new life growing inside me, I imagined I heard gentle laughter echoing from Heaven.  I was awed--and humbled--and overcome with gratitude for my baby and my piano, both received on the same day.  


There are some lessons I seem destined to learn over and over again, but I can say that I learned for myself (again) on June 23rd that God loves and is aware of His children.