courage...it comes in all sizes

I started to write this blog post to brag about how proud I am of my girls.  After only a few weeks of piano lessons, both Jillian and Leah performed at a piano recital to play what they had learned.  Jillian even played and sang a song she had composed herself.  My first thought was to talk about how they showed courage in getting up there to do this in front of a group of about 25 people, most of them strangers, and other students who would be playing with far more experience.

As I wrote about what they did I realized while it was pretty awesome, it pales in comparison to what so many other children face every day.  I have a friend who has a son fighting for his life against leukemia.  I think about Joey facing this horrible disease and the chemo treatments that go along with what must seem like endless hospital stays. Compared to my kids and their average day it seems incredibly unfair.  Then there's the courage of people around us who make a huge difference...police officers and firemen who put their lives on the line to save others, missionaries and doctors who travel to the other side of the world to make life better for others.  When I was talking about a piano recital, all of a sudden courage didn't seem like quite the right word to use in describing their accomplishment in comparison to others.

Then I realized it isn't a competition about who can be the most courageous or face the biggest obstacle.  We are all called to be courageous in our every day lives, whether the things we are up against are big or small.  I'm thankful my kids have an easy life, I appreciate that right now we don't have big things that we are up against.  But that doesn't diminish their day to day accomplishments.  The little acts of courage are important too.  I think it's important my kids are able to show courage in the face of these minor hurdles to prepare them for life when they may have big hurdles to jump.  That's our job as their parents, to eventually send them off into the world prepared with a full toolbox...faith, love, kindness, courage, smarts, honesty, persistence, happiness, gratefulness, tolerance.  Showing these traits in the face of day to day life now will  help them to go onto bigger things as adults, to show courage and kindness and faith in ways I can't even imagine.

Right now I see my kids showing these character traits on a daily basis.  Making new friends, trying new things, learning from their mistakes.  That's what makes me feel like we are doing some things right on this parenting journey.  So it turns out I am going to brag about my girls.  They started playing piano just a few weeks ago.  They've jumped into their lessons with joy and excitement.  And they got up at a recital in front of friends and strangers and played what they had learned so far.  Way to go Jillian and Leah, keep it up!

Leah played two short pieces at the recital

Jillian played a piece she composed herself titled "Thunder"