More Than Piano Lessons

More Than Piano Lessons

There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.

“Please pick up the kids ten minutes late.”

The text from my children’s piano teacher made me smile. Karen is the music teacher at our elementary school and has been our piano teacher for years. My children have spent countless hours sitting on her piano bench and in her classroom.

As they sit alongside her, they confide about troubles with classmates, hopes for their summer breaks, theories about the latest Marvel movie, and all the things almost-tweens think about. She listens and responds with the kind of advice she is perfectly positioned to give as a teacher, a mother of grown children, and a mentor who shares their school world. She echoes all the same words their father and I speak over them—but from a different perspective that sometimes resonates louder than our parental voices. And this year, I’ve periodically received a text telling me to come a bit later than when the lesson would normally end, because they’ve decided to chat over a small bowl of ice cream.

My son confesses these little ice cream breaks to me with a sly grin at the end of the lesson as Karen and I make eye contact with our own sly grins over the children’s heads. Having another adult who loves my children and will speak words of accountability, truth, and life over them is a gift beyond measure. I am forever grateful for Karen’s investment of time, energy, and love in the lives of my children—and of all the children who sit on her piano bench or stand on her choir risers at school. She is fiercely on the side of all of her kids, and mine are far from the only ones who have been loved well in her orbit. She perfectly balances friendship and mentoring with her students, and the sacrificial love she pours into her students impacts the families in her orbit far more than she’ll realize this side of heaven.

— Julie

— Today’s Act of Friendship —

Befriend someone younger at your church, your workplace, or in your neighborhood, coming alongside them in loving guidance.