A jarring wiry chord..

For the past 3 weeks or so, I've been sacrificing half an hour of sleep almost every night to do one thing: p-r-a-c-t-i-c-e-t-h-e-g-u-i-t-a-r.

Before I sacrificed my sleep, here's the other things I had to give up:

1) My lovely long fingernails (think along the lines of no more delightful manicures with delightful nail art)

2) My Friday nights for guitar lessons (think along the lines of it's the only night I'm almost confirmed able to leave work before 8pm which is why lessons are scheduled on this day)

3) $500 plus on guitar, gear and class fees (ok this is not really a sacrifice, it would have gone into something frivolous anyway, like manicures: see 1 above)

4) The lovely skin just below the tip of my nails (think along the lines of callouses, birthed after 3 weeks of practicing after 26 years of not doing any housework and thereby preserving my lovely hands) (i think of this chinese idiom that goes: xue2 hao3 san1 nian2, xue2 huai4 san1 tian1)

Ok, come to think of it, none of the above 4/5 'sacrifices' are really a big deal. C'mon get real. God instructed, I obeyed. It's as simple as that. And I do entertain grandiose dreams of being able to lead worship and play fluently with the guitar, to minister to the hearts of many. That's truly a dream. Which I intend to fulfil by the end of the year. (So there, I've written it on a public domain, so I have to practice and pray really hard for God to turn me into a guitar genius).

So I strum and I strum and I press and I press. I try to sing along (sometimes when I'm not too busy trying to find out which strings to press). (now for those who don't know, I was classically trained in the piano for 8 years and am thereby used to using fingers to press keys and play the melody to songs. my point is: guitar is like a whole new world, where strings are staple, chords are alien and what on earth are strumming patterns?!) (ok maybe my real point is that i'm not musically talented and am definitely not a guitar genius.) So as i was trying to say, i really DO NOT enjoy practicing the guitar. And for those who are not guitar geniuses like me, you'll understand! I've difficulty pressing the right strings because my fingers are not used to it. And most of the time even when I do press the right strings the right chord does not come out! Why is that?! I don't know. In its place, this really jarring wiry sound comes out and you wonder to yourself: is this music?? So after you get one chord right, there's the next chord! And changing from one chord to another is really not as single as changing from one key on the piano to another.

I know some would think: wah this girl is really a grouch man! What does she expect? Instant success? Practice makes perfect - the age old mantra which holds true till today!

Well I agree! I'm a brat. I expect to be an instant genius at everything I do. Simply because I'm used to doing only things I'm good at. That guarantees success. It's foolproof. If I was good at brushing my teeth, I'd just brush my teeth the whole day and be proud of the fact that I've such white, bacteria free teeth. Makes sense, doesn't it? (Note: my example does not really really make sense. If you think it does, please drop me a note, I'd like to be your friend. Also please note that I said 'if' so I'm not good at brushing my teeth.)

Doing something I'm not good at makes me uncomfortable. It's much like that jarring wiry sound that comes out when I don't press the guitar strings properly. It's just not pleasant.

Brattish as I am, I do understand one thing: unless one is placed in an uncomfortable position, one would never grow. God, make my life a miracle! Why would I need a miracle unless I'm placed in a situation that needs one? God, help me grow through the greatness of my tasks! If the tasks are always the same, how to grow?

And so I persevere.

And today, I tasted a fruit. A strange fruit, not in the likes of apple or orange. There was this strumming pattern I did not understand. Don't ask me to explain to you why I don't understand. You probably wouldn't understand. Just accept that I didn't get it. And I've been working on it for about a week. And finally today, when I picked up the guitar to play, it just suddenly came naturally to me. Don't ask me how. I believe it's divine. But more than that, God spoke. Through my crap playing? Yes, through my crap playing. Through the jarring wiry chords? Yes through the jarring wiry chords. Only the strumming pattern was right. And yet He spoke. Not only did He speak but He gave me the answer for a question I had not even asked.

Some people ask me why I do the things I do and why I follow God like a fanatic.

The answer is simple. He finds beauty in a jarring wiry chord.