I was young, maybe six or seven, I can't remember exactly. It was my first piano recital. I was all dressed up in my Sunday best. My parents were sitting three or four rows back in the Primary room at the Church. I waited anxiously for my turn. When it came, I walked to the piano, although to this day I don't know how I made it, with my Jell-o legs. With shaking hands, I hit the first chord. The song was from the LDS Children's Songbook, called "I Wonder When He Comes Again". The song is just short of two pages long, and about halfway through it, the notes from my memory and the muscle memory both flew right out my brain. It was gone. I sat there, hands shaking worse than ever, panicking, blood rushing to my fingertips as the impulse to flee threatened to overcome me. Just before I could convince my near-liquid legs to take on the weight of my body, I heard something. A whisper. It was my teacher, sitting in the front row, just to my right. "She can do it, I know she can do it." That's what she said. The possibility of running away now entirely out of the question, I sat there, nonplussed and confused. I couldn't remember the song, but I couldn't very well leave now, not with my teacher showing such confidence in me! What a pickle. But then suddenly it came to me. I remembered! I started exactly where I'd left off, and when I finished the last chord, and the sound died away, I stood, and grinned, first at my parents, and then at my teacher, courtseying as my teacher had instructed.
A couple years ago, I had some business to attend to at BYU. I drove my mom's car into the parking lot, parked, conducted my business and returned-only to find that in my absence, one of my tires had deflated. Flashing back to my first time on the road, which involved a curb, a flat tire and a lesson in which pedal is which, I knew exactly what to do. I opened the trunk, retrieved the necessary elements, jacked up the car, and proceeded to loosen the bolts. Except that they wouldn't budge. At all. It's like they were welded to the hubcap. When my arm strength proved too weak, I resorted to my legs, since they are larger muscles, and I could stand and put my weight on it. I must have looked pretty silly, stomping on the bar over and over again, with increasing frustration evident in the increasing force with which I brought my foot down. In the midst of this, I heard from behind me a male voice saying, "Whoa! Whoa!" as though I were beating a puppy. I turned and he walked over, indicating that he would assist me. Feeling a little hurt, I nevertheless conceded the mechanism to him. He took the bar, and began to struggle, first just a little and then with all his might. It wouldn't budge. Feeling vindicated, I looked at him, and he looked back at me. His chivalrous act was disintegrating before his very eyes. Eventually, he resorted to my own form of attack, and began stomping on it. I'd like to think that I loosened it for him, but he did eventually get the bolt loose, and then the others as well. We got the spare tire secured, and I thanked him for his help. It's hard to say who's pride was wounded more in the encounter.
In the first incident, I practiced for weeks upon weeks, memorizing and agonizing. In the second, it was a complete surprise, as was the complication. In either case, help came precisely when it was needed. In both, I knew what I was doing, but it didn't hurt to have a little extra push in the right direction. However things come our way, we can always rest assured that our Heavenly Father will never leave us stranded. Whether it's in the form of whispered words of encouragement or a proverbial Knight who comes to the rescue, even when we could probably do the job ourselves, He will never leave us alone. He always knows what we need and how we need it. All we have to do is learn to recognize and accept it.
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