Amazing Grace and Missing Notes
I’ve been learning to play the mandolin.
And if you’ve ever learned an instrument, you already know what that means.
There are good notes.
There are bad notes.
There are notes that probably weren’t intended by the person who wrote the song.
And then there are the moments when your fingers seem to forget everything they’ve practiced.
But I keep playing.
One of the songs I’ve been practicing is Amazing Grace.
It’s familiar. It’s beautiful. And when I’m playing it slowly, one note at a time, I know exactly what it’s supposed to sound like.
Whether my mandolin agrees is another matter.
Someone Was Playing Along
One day I was practicing Amazing Grace in one part of the house while Michael was in his music room located across the house.
As I played, I started hearing a guitar.
Softly.
Somewhere around the corner.
At first, I thought it was pretty cool.
We were both playing at the same time in different parts of the house.
Then I started wondering…
Wait. Is he actually playing with me?
So naturally, I tested my theory.
I played a note.
I heard his guitar.
I stopped.
Silence.
I played another note.
There he was again.
I stopped.
Silence.
This went on for a while because apparently the best way to determine whether your husband is secretly accompanying you is to completely destroy any possibility of the two of you actually playing a song together.
I can only imagine what Michael was thinking.
Why won’t she just keep playing?
Meanwhile, I’m sitting there playing Amazing Grace one note at a time, stopping after practically every note because I’m trying to figure out what he’s doing.
Eventually, there was no question.
He was playing with me.
Not loudly.
Not taking over.
Just quietly following along from another room while I tried to find my way through the melody.
And I loved it.
Missing Notes
I’ve thought about that little moment several times since then.
Partly because it still makes me laugh.
But also, because there was something beautiful about it.
I wasn’t playing Amazing Grace perfectly.
Far from it.
I was learning.
I hesitated.
I stopped when I shouldn’t have stopped.
Sometimes I had to find my place and begin again.
And yet…
It was still Amazing Grace.
The missed notes didn’t erase the song.
The pauses didn’t erase the song.
My imperfect playing didn’t make the melody meaningless.
The song was still there.
Maybe Grace Is Like That
Faith can sometimes feel as though we’re supposed to have everything figured out.
Know the right thing to say.
Make the right decision.
Trust without hesitation.
Never question.
Never stumble.
Never miss a note.
But that’s not how I’ve experienced life.
Sometimes faith is strong.
Sometimes there are questions.
Sometimes we know exactly where we’re going.
Sometimes we’re trying to find the next note.
We make mistakes.
We lose our place.
We stop.
We begin again.
And maybe grace was never dependent on us playing everything perfectly in the first place.
Maybe that’s the point of grace.
The Music Doesn’t Stop Because You Missed a Note
When you’re learning an instrument, a wrong note can feel enormous.
You hear it immediately.
Your instinct is to stop.
Go back.
Fix it.
Start over.
But eventually you learn something important:
Sometimes you just keep playing.
The song is bigger than one wrong note.
I think life can be like that too.
We can become so focused on the places where we stumbled that we forget everything that came before and everything still waiting ahead.
We let one mistake convince us we’ve ruined the whole song.
We haven’t.
There is another note coming.
Find it.
Keep going.
Sometimes Someone Is Playing Along
There’s another part of that afternoon that stays with me.
Michael didn’t come into the room and tell me how to play.
He didn’t correct every missed note.
He didn’t take the mandolin out of my hands.
He simply picked up his guitar and played along.
Quietly.
I didn’t even realize what he was doing at first.
And there’s something about that image that speaks to me.
Sometimes support doesn’t announce itself.
Sometimes encouragement isn’t standing directly in front of us.
Sometimes we’re so concentrated on finding our own next note that we don’t notice someone has been beside us—or just around the corner—all along.
And for me, there’s faith in that thought too.
There have been seasons of my life when I’ve known exactly where God was leading me.
And there have been seasons when I couldn’t see very far ahead at all.
Looking back, though, I can often see something I couldn’t see while I was living through it.
I wasn’t playing alone.
Keep Playing
I’m still learning Amazing Grace.
There will be more missed notes.
I’m pretty certain of that.
There will probably be more moments when Michael hears me practicing and quietly reaches for his guitar.
And knowing me, there’s a decent chance I’ll stop playing again just to figure out whether he’s doing it.
But maybe I’m learning something bigger than a song.
Maybe I’m learning that beautiful things don’t require perfect execution.
That a missed note isn’t the end.
That sometimes the best thing you can do is find the melody again and keep going.
And that even when you think you’re playing alone…
you might not be.
Riff Junkie Reflection
Life isn’t a perfect performance.
Neither is faith.
Neither is music.
We miss notes.
We lose our place.
We start again.
But grace was never about getting every note right.
The missed notes don’t erase the song.
Find the melody.
Keep playing.
🖤🎸 Riff Junkie