Valerie M. Grissom

My son: “Mom, you could just play like you have been doing every night. I just need someone to record some piano music for me. I want to experiment using the piano microphones in the recording studio. My teacher said I could use the recording studio this Saturday. Please!”

Me: “But I’m not ready. I’m really rusty.”

In the past few years, I have been transitioning professionally, which has meant a bunch more research, writing, speaking, consulting, and a lot less leading worship arts, let alone playing my own music.

And to be really raw and honest, when I lost both of my parents three years ago, my mom on December 21, and my dad on December 31, my obsession with Christmas music dropped to zilch.

Additionally, the thought of recording a piano CD of Christmas music seemed bittersweet. My parents had begged me to make a Christmas recording through the years. Unbeknownst to me, during Covid, they had gathered anything my sister and I had put together for church (My sister and I are both church musicians.), that had been recorded for our churches worship gatherings, and played it for everyone they knew. Now that my parents were not here, there just didn’t seem to be a reason to record.

And yet, this year, I felt a new joy on Halloween, my traditional night for breaking out the Christmas music, beginning with playing my Carpenter CD. And I began playing every morning and night, revisiting songs I played and played previous holidays. I had been opening my heart ever so slowly to the rhythms and joys of playing Christmas piano music again.

So, on this day around Thanksgiving this year, when my son, who is an Audio Engineering Major, asked me to play some piano pieces for him, I felt a bit intimidated. I sat in regret. I used to play these pieces so much better. If only I had practiced more this past year. I wish I was more ready for this recording.

All the layers of regret stacked up, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to record.

Then I read a Facebook post from a friend who is a recording artist named Rachel Wilhelm. At the end of the year, when musical artists compare their Spotify viewing summaries, she was reminding them about the danger of comparison. She reminded artists that we do not create to have the most posts or to compare and decide who is the best; rather the Creator, the Originator of all things creative, calls us to create. We are wired to create, and we are to create simply for the sake of creation, rather than seeking a sense of completion, accomplishment, or acclaim. Upon reading Rachel’s words, I felt compelled to create just for the joy of creation.

I contemplated on how being formed and created in the image of God makes me inherently creative. In this season, I reflected on the healing power of my ability to sit down and just play and create, without needing to accomplish anything. That is the joy in my playing that my son had been hearing every night, and he wanted to capture it on a recording.

So I said “yes.”

Of course, the minute the recording button goes on, as a musician, I tend to get nervous and make mistake after mistake. I do not know why I can perform in front of thousands of people and be ok, but the minute someone pushes the record button, I fall apart. During Covid, we had to do so much recording that I learned to handle this kind of pressure better, but still I knew I needed to come into this studio recording in a good mental place.

So I told my son: “I am just going to play, and play, and play. You capture what you want. For me to be able to do this, I need to think of it as a casual jam session. I am going to keep playing, even if I make mistakes. And between playing written arrangements, I’m going to improv some of my own songs on the spot in between, out of the hymnal, to keep myself in the mode of joy.

So I played for a few hours, and my son put on the headset. I was the only one in the recording space—just me and the piano; my son was in a different recording room. And I found myself relaxing, just enjoying the gift of creating in the moment. Every time a song seemed like it was not going well, I just put it away for a bit and played my own improvisation on the spot from the hymnal for a bit. Then I would come back to the arrangement giving me trouble and try again. I told myself to keep playing even if I made mistakes, and no song was played more than three times.

When we were done, I actually realized what a gift it was to just sit down and play. If felt myself able to be fully present in the moment, ok with the mistakes, freedom to play and enjoy as I was playing.

I was free to play and create. It was a healing experience for me.

My son asked me which recordings I wanted to keep, and I said: “You decide. I probably won’t want to listen back to this. But thanks for bringing me to do this.”

Fast forward a couple of weeks. This Sunday before Christmas we were in the kitchen scurrying about, finishing making Sunday dinner, while listening to a Christmas music playlist. The music of “Feliz Navidad” played over and over, and I finally couldn’t take it anymore: “Please play something else.”

Suddenly, the music switched to something more relaxing, and I kept working in the kitchen. After five or so minutes, my son asked: “Mom, how do you like this playlist?”

I told him that it was more relaxing and thanks for changing it. He asked again: “What do you think of this song?” I confessed that the music was a bit quieter, so I couldn’t distinguish what song was playing.

He turned the music up a bit, and asked again: “What do you think of this song?”

Realization dawned on me, as I listened to myself playing “What Child Is This?”

I didn’t know it, but he had been working for the past couple of weeks to edit the music. He explained that he had about 51 minutes of playable recordings edited.

We listened to this music throughout dinner. Part of me felt vulnerable and exposed, as the rest of my family, including my husband listened to the recording. Part of me relaxed, realizing there were some beautiful moments from a Saturday morning of creativity.

Every once in a while, we would be talking at dinner, and all of a sudden, I would hear something, and joked, “That pianist missed that progression right there,” or “You can tell that she is improving there because she doesn’t know what the notes should be.” We would laugh, but my 11-year old insistently said: “Mom, our band teacher said that most people will never know if you make a mistake, so just keep playing.”

And I agree. I will keep playing because I am realizing that I am created by God to create. I will not be playing for perfection, but maybe to bless a few with my creativity, but most of all to bask in the creativity of the creative God who has breathed in me the gift of creation.

So, my gift today here is my casual recording session. Even if it only blesses one, I am thankful for the gift to create. And I humbly offer it as music for you to play in the background of your holiday celebrations.

But I also want to challenge you all as we move into 2025 to create.

You may say: “Valerie, I am not creative!” And I would reply that this is simply not true.

Our Creator God whose handiwork is seen throughout the world—delicate snowflakes amongst the grandeur of mountains, design intricacies throughout the human body, and musical tones that delight our ears and warm our hearts—so many expressions of creation can be seen throughout our world. But that same creator has instilled in us the ability to create.

Creation can take shape in music and art and dance, but it also comes forth in words, bodily movement, building, repairing, mending, shaping. Our unique abilities to create are as vast as the creativity of our God seen around the world. And God delights in the wonder of creation (Genesis 1; Psalm 104:31). God delights in our creation.

So I encourage you today, as we lean into this time of gifts and a New Year, that you lean into—to delight in—how God inspires you to create.

As I write this, I recognize that, for my son, he delighted in the process of creating a recording. Maybe your creative talent might be gardening, or playing a game, or cooking...so many expressions of creativity exist. And all of them teach us how to lean into what it means to be created in the image of God.

May you find, as I have, that it is not about what you create, or how you create, but that you create, and how you delight in the gift itself of creation.

Blessings on your Christmas and New Year,

May you find delight in the gift of creation,

Valerie

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