Stumbling through a Silent Night

I carefully screened all the notes- we knew all of them!
"Asherel!" I exclaimed, "We can play Silent Night!"
I plopped the guitar book down in front of her, terribly excited.  I had learned to read music as a child by playing a Christmas song. I think it was Hark the Herald Angels Sing (one of my young kids had asked me who was Harold and why was he singing....). Whatever the song, the notes had predictably climbed up and down the staff so that I could connect the key on the organ with the code on the music page. That somehow unlocked music reading for me. (Maybe it was The First Noel....as usual, my memory fails me....)

Anyway, Asherel is taking guitar lessons and I am a sucker fish, sitting in on her lesson, since I am the chauffeur, and absorbing as much as I can without having to pay for my instruction. When we get home, Asherel always sits me down and patiently practices with me.

"I can't do it!" I cried, banging my head on my guitar.
"Yes you can Mom, you are getting better!"
"No, my fingers can never find the g or the e, and forget about the f or the c. It is impossible!"
"Mom, stop being negative. It hurts the teacher's feelings."

I glanced at her. Cruel , cruel world that makes children mirrors! I must have used that line many times in home school for it to spring so easily from her lips. What other teaching methods would I soon be subjected to?

"Would you like to do the chords for a while and I will finger pick?" she asked gently.
I am good at the chords....well, the F twangs and vibrates a bit unmelodiously but it is getting better. I rock at the C and G, and sound like a pro on E minor. 
I sniffled, "Okay."
She finger picked while I strummed "Silent Night."

There was no snow, but the Christmas tree was decorated all in white snowflakes and crystal icicles. It shimmered in the next room as my daughter and I slowly and somewhat inexpertly strolled through the song, the night no longer silent. The halting, but quietly beautiful notes of the hopes for humankind settling around the peaceful scene of another mother and child filled the room and our hearts.
"Good!" said Asherel with an encouraging lilt in her voice as the last chord slowly dissipated in the air.

We might have the song down by Christmas. Asherel certainly will. She is a very quick study, and her fingers seem to find the notes easily, and her memory allows her to have a song firmly in her brain after playing it just a few times. I, on the other hand, will have to play it every day, several times a day for the next month, and am pretty sure even then, I will not have memorized the notes, and my fingers will probably still stumble on the A and E.  But what I will have fully absorbed is the message. I never remember specifics, just like my fingers never seem to alight on the right string the first time, but I always remember what I am playing and Who I am playing it to. Fortunately, God honors the offering of the weak, and in this I will never disappoint Him. We stumble along, halting in speech, infirm, blind and lame in so many ways.... but God accepts the most despicable and imperfect soul as easily as the refined. 
"Just come to me", He beckons," I will give you fingers that will find the A and the E, and I will give you songs that sparkle in the silent night just as brightly as the stars that I have placed there to guide you!"

Psalm 37:24
"though he stumble, he will not fall, for the Lord upholds him with his hand."

Psalm 92

 ¹ It is good to praise the LORD
   and make music to your name, O Most High,
² proclaiming your love in the morning
   and your faithfulness at night,
³ to the music of the ten-stringed lyre
   and the melody of the harp.
 ⁴ For you make me glad by your deeds, LORD;
   I sing for joy at what your hands have done.
⁵ How great are your works, LORD