The God Who Listened

Some wishes are whispered only once, in a place and time where they seem impossible.

I was six years old, living in a leaking-roof house in a small village in rural southern Vietnam. In patched clothes, with a toy keyboard in my hands, that day I sat before our flickering black-and-white TV and watched a pianist play a grand piano. I wished I could play one too.

My mother — a poor single mum who sometimes worked twenty-two hours a day just to keep food on the table — had never even seen a grand piano. She laughed at my wish, not knowing Heaven had already heard it.

I never had a real piano when I was young. At six, I had a toy keyboard with only eight keys. At fourteen, my mother bought me a second-hand one for ten dollars — just thirty-seven keys, old and imperfect. I taught myself what I could, making music in a narrow space, never knowing if I would play on a real piano one day.

If I boast, I boast in this — that I did not have enough, yet God gave me joy in it. I could not play like others, yet He taught me to listen, to feel, and to keep the love for music alive.

Last year, my husband bought me a digital piano — my first full-sized instrument — and it opened the door for my love of music to grow.

“It’s like a dream come true,” I told him, pressing the first keys of my new piano.

Piano with Music Sheet

Yesterday, I had a chance to play on a grand piano at a friend’s house. When my hands touched the wooden keys, it was His kindness that I saw. What was planted in a child’s small hands had grown only because His grace was sufficient.

Twenty-nine years ago, an impossible wish was granted to a poor girl.

No shooting star was needed —

just a God who listened.

Some dreams take years to arrive, but when they do, you realise they were never late — they came at the exact moment God intended.