Yesterday the Institute choir had what they called a "friends and family fireside", which I am pretty sure means "one which we want to have early in the year to get our first-performance jitters out of the way so we will invite people we know well because they will still like us if we are a bit rough around the edges". Or something. My sister is in her second year of singing with this group and had to be there early to rehearse, and I came along.
So I'm sitting there in the chapel, trying to make some headway on a (ridiculously ambitious and probably needing some rethinking) scripture-reading program, when the director says my name. He knows me well because I sang in this choir myself for four years, and he wants me to go listen to this duet to make sure it's okay for the program. I say okay sure, and off we go down the hall. (Meanwhile reassuring the girls, whose names I do not know, that I am both a very kind person and a very musical one, so they need not worry about my judgment in either sense.)
The three of us arrive at the Primary room, where we find a boy I do not know, who appears to be girl-I-do-not-know-#1's boyfriend, and a woman I do not know, who (it turns out) is girl-I-do-not-know-#2's mother. I explain what I am doing there and sit down to listen, and MIDNK asks me if by any chance I play the piano. I tell her that as a matter of fact I do, although I have never played this particular song ("For Good" from the musical "Wicked".) She starts playing, they sing, and it's fine, and I tell them so. Then MIDNK asks if perhaps I would like to try playing the song for them, as she is not entirely comfortable with accompanying them in public. I say okay sure again, and we go through it once. It is a trifle awkward, since the song is a little unpredictable and has two key changes. When we get through, they talk about it some and tell me if I am okay with it, they are okay with having me play for them. So GsIDNK take BIDNK and MIDNK and leave me to go through the song a few times.
I join the choir in the Relief Society room about half an hour later, in time to hear their before-performance devotional and prayer. While the prayer is going on, I am thinking to myself, "Please let me play this as well as possible." Playing the piano in public still makes me nervous, and my hands tend to shake, so I added, "Please steady my hands and prevent me from screwing this up." Then we go into the chapel, and the program commences. (And for the record, it was a little rough in places, but boy, when they get past that, they are REALLY something.) The duet is toward the end of the program, and as I am playing, I notice a rather odd phenomenon. I am nervous, and I can't hear GsIDNK very well (by which I mean really at all), so that is making me more nervous, and I can feel myself shaking...but only in my arms, not in my hands. They blithely go about their business without seeming to notice the state the rest of me is in.
Over the past several years, I have spent some time thinking about prayers. I know that we are supposed to ask for what we want, and I know that sometimes we get it and sometimes we don't. I also know that sometimes getting what we want turns out poorly, and not getting it turns out to be a blessing. I have had prayers answered with "Yes", "Yes, but not now", "No", and occasionally with silence, which I interpret as meaning I need to think about what I'm asking for some more. But I don't know that I have ever had a prayer answered quite so...specifically. What I asked for was to play as well as possible, to have my hands steadied and to not screw up the performance. And what I got was EXACTLY that.
This is what I learned anew from last night's experience: God is real. He hears and answers prayers. And (I am pretty sure, anyway) He has a terrific sense of humor.
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