Over the last few months, my oldest daughter Cate has been taking piano lessons with Candace Fish, the Director of Traditional Worship at the Edmond Campus. Candace is so incredible with Cate; she is calm, kind, and patient – everything you could want in a teacher.
Now, something you should know about Cate is that she has some sensory processing hurdles and upper limb weakness which can make something like playing the piano, which requires strong hands and loud noises, tricky. Additionally, she can be incredibly hard on herself when she doesn’t get everything right on the first try.
She has been so excited each week to come home and show us what she has learned. She is thrilled to practice alongside me and teach me what she is learning. For Christmas, my parents bought her a piano for her room to practice at home.
A little over a month ago, they had a specifically hard practice. Cate couldn’t quite get the notes to play the way she wanted, and her hands weren’t cooperating. The more she tried, the worse her mood and temperament grew. It would have been so easy for Candace to have ended the lesson and said she just couldn’t handle it. Instead, she took her aside, away from the piano, helped her to calm her body, and then talked to her in the kindest way, helped her process her emotions, and then tried again, successfully.
I am so grateful for the love that was shown to her during a trying time for my seven-year-old.
Is there something you are struggling with? I encourage you to step back, take some deep breaths, reconnect with God and ask Him for help before you try to tackle it again.
Mandi Coleman, Director, St. Luke’s Children’s Center
