Recent Life

I have so many things to write about. Bear with me.

Yesterday:
I have my piano lesson on Fridays at 1:00 ever week, and they're actually really fun. I mean, I love the piano and I love studying it at Tech and I absolutely adore my teacher, so it's always a good time. Well this past week on Tuesday I had my very first solo convocation performance and it was pretty scary. I mean, it wasn't really that scary, but I had been practicing really hard but when I went out to play I messed up a lot, though I kept going. It was a fine first performance, and although I know that it wasn't the best I've ever played it, I am overall pleased with it

So I emailed my teacher on Wednesday, asking her about performance anxiety and things like that because I just wanted to know how to "cure" myself of it (for lack of a better word). Then she said that we would talk about it more in my lesson. Well on Thursday she handed me 2 articles to read if I would have time and said if not we would just discuss them on Friday. Well Friday comes, and I hadn't read the articles because I had no time (shocker!) and she started to ask me different things about why I thought I got nervous.

I have no idea why I get nervous. I tried to talk through it though. One thing I came up with that seemed the most insightful into my own self was that when I play for myself, there's obviously no pressure because I know what I can do and how well I can do it and what to fix and correct. When I play for just one person, I get their feedback right away and if they have corrections I can apply those, but ultimately they know how well I can play too. Well when I get in front of a large group of people and am in a real performance situation I get tense and nervous and somehow my mind freaks out because there are so many people watching me. I can't know what all of them thought of the performance, but when I know that I've messed up I think to myself, 'I can play this so much better than that! And none of these people know...' So yeah. DTC's (my teacher) is trying to help me get over that.

BUT the coolest thing that happened in my lesson, which I was not expecting at all, was that she said to me, "You know Katie, as Christians, we have it a little easier when it comes to things like this." I was thinking, what is she getting at here? I was kind of confused, but she went on to tell me/ask me why I did this? She said, "I assume you do it for fun, because you enjoy it and find joy in doing it. I know you have a lot of opposition and a lot of hurdles in front of you so that should make performing all the more fun for you!" She was right. So then I agreed, and she asked me about my motivation. It was weird because just the night before I had been wondering to myself what my own motivation was and why I liked playing piano. This is where the "it's easier for Christians" thing came in. She told me that our motivation is always to do everything for the glory of God. She told me that she always has to think that way because Jesus doesn't care if you miss a note - He just cares that you're playing for Him and He takes pleasure in listening to you play the piano in His name, even if to other people it sounds like you might have messed up.

Something else that she told me that I thought was REALLY cool was Psalm 34: "I will bless the Lord at all times; His praise shall be continually in my mouth." DTC told me that she changes 'mouth' to 'fingers' and I thought that was absolutely the greatest thing ever!

I am so grateful for my piano teacher. Mostly because she's more than just my Individual Applied Piano teacher. She's my mentor, my sister in Christ, and she disciples me. It's wonderful. It's wonderful to have a teacher who you can talk to about your inner-most self and the most personal things because you know that you share a kindred spirit in Christ. I just can't get over this! I praise God for her because of her heart and the example of her life lived in Jesus that she continuously shows me.


Today:
This morning/afternoon I went to the Farmer's Market in Downtown Blacksburg with my dear friend Ashlee and my friend Colin. We just poked around for a while, got some ice cream, dyed Easter eggs, had a good ol' time. Well we went to walk to go get lunch and there are a couple of girls and one of their moms having a bake sale on the corner of the street in front of Moe's (a very popular place for college life in Blacksburg) to raise money in support of the people in Africa suffering from drought and famine.

There were a bunch of goodies, a lot of them Easter-themed, and some really cool mugs and pottery type things that had been home made and donated to them to sell. The girl told me that we could have whatever we wanted for any donation. So I handed them 5 dollars and took a mug (which I'm really excited about). I started asking her if she'd been to Africa (she said no) and kind of about herself and we didn't really get to talk much. She said that she'd never had the opportunity to go, but she guessed it'd be cool to go. The older woman (whom I'm assuming was her mother) said that whenever she hears of something going on in the world she tried to have a bake sale to raise money for them.

I just thought this was really cool. This girl couldn't have been older than 13 or 14 and she's already changing the world. Just seeing hearts like this in people younger than me makes me realize that the Gospel of Jesus is alive in so many people and does not restrict itself to people of a certain age. I was very encouraged, and I'm praying for this girl and that her heart always stays on fire for God and keeps breaking for the people around her for the drive to help them and witness to people through service.

It's been a good weekend so far. Though now I'm afraid I must submit myself to Calculus and English.

Tonight I'm going to a bonfire. Tomorrow is Easter. I will be drinking coffee. I'm really excited. I'm so in love with Jesus and cannot even begin to comprehend the magnitude of what He did for me. I'm clean and I'm saved because of His BLOOD. How crazy is that? I can't get over it. Praise God for THE greatest sacrifice in all of history. I'm so grateful that He allows me to be a friend of Jesus.

It's just so sweet.