Giving Everything

Isn’t it amazing how much God loves us? I mean, he  sent his son to die for us - and no matter what we do, no matter how ugly we can be sometimes, he loves us despite everything. Not only that, but he gives us small reminders of his love every single day. I was given a huge reminder just recently and I would like to tell this story.

I love music - a lot, I practically live and breathe it. I take piano and voice lessons and I’m constantly either singing, playing, or listening to music. I’m home schooled but the reason I have been able to take both piano and voice lessons is because my family is enrolled in this program where we get publicly funded for some school. This year, however, they cut it down so that they only pay for one fine arts per student. When I found out about this, I was pretty shook up. I knew that meant I would have to quit either piano or voice lessons. And as spoiled as this sounds; I didn’t want to give up either one. So I practically got on my knees and begged Mom to some how, some way, even if it meant not eating, come up with money to pay for my voice lessons. Unfortunately, she decided that eating is more important than my voice lessons (we agree to disagree on this subject) and sat me down to talk. My parents decided to pay for a certain amount monthly for my lessons, leaving me a big chunk to come up with. I have a job working at a kitchen store and if I worked regular hours, having enough money wouldn’t be a problem. But since the Christmas rush ended, I only get asked to come in when whoever was supposed to work then can’t. I haven’t been called in since April and most of the money I have is going to be used to pay for driver’s ed. next month.

I needed another solution.

Mom’s ideas:

1) Ask the grandparents to pledge some money each month.

Pros: If they each only gave $20 a month I would have enough.

Cons: I hate asking for money, I’m not sure how much I could count on that money coming in, and I would feel bad to ask them for money...coming back to hating asking for money.

2) See if I could work one day a week at the kitchen store.

Pros: I would get to work and get more than enough money to pay for my lessons.

Cons: I would hate asking for that, it probably wouldn’t work well for them, and I might not get paid when I need to.

After this talk, I was pretty discouraged. That night I felt like it wasn’t possible and I would have to give up something I love to do. I cried and prayed for about an hour before I went to bed. I told God that I had given up finding a solution on my own and that it probably was not possible doing it my way but through him, all things are possible. I let go of everything and I gave it to Jesus and let him fill me with his peace. I stopped worrying about it, knowing that it wouldn’t be the end of the world if I had to stop taking voice lessons. I still wanted it and hoped for it, but I thanked God that he knows what he’s doing.

A few days later, Mom got an email from my voice teacher saying that she needed to hire someone to clean up after a class she taught to little kids and asked if I would do it. This solved everything! I just kinda stood there in shock. A realization came over me, I wrote it down in my journal that night: “Jesus loves me so much that not only did he die for me, he gave me something so small in comparison by letting me continue to do something I love, to remind me of how big he is and how big his love is for me.”

The moral of the story is: Jesus loves us so much and we should give everything, all of ourselves to him, and thank him for everything, even the bad things, because he knows what he’s doing. We might not like some of his plans at first, but they always turn out for our good.