What Is Your Gift?

Today, during music appreciation, my daughter asked me a question I wasn't expecting.

"Mama, what's your talent?"

It started with Handel.

For our first quarter of homeschooling, we're studying George Frideric Handel. Once a week, we listen to a single movement from Messiah, and then I read her a small piece of his life story. I divided his biography into eight little lessons — four or five paragraphs each — written as a living story rather than a list of dates and facts.

Today we reached the part of Handel's childhood when his father discovered just how serious his son's love of music really was.

His father did not want him to become a musician. He wanted something practical for his son — a profession that would offer security and respectability.

I couldn't help but smile at that.

Hundreds of years later, so many parents would understand him completely.

"Music? But what will you do with that?"
"Can you actually make a living from it?"
"Maybe choose something more practical."

But Handel kept finding his way back to music. And while he was still a boy, his playing caught the attention of a duke, who saw at once that there was something extraordinary in him. The duke urged Handel's father not to suppress the boy's gift — to let it be developed rather than buried.

That was the part that stayed with us.

When I finished reading, I asked my daughter to narrate.

She remembered that the duke had told Handel's father something like, "This is a present from God. We should not bury it."

So I asked her, "What shouldn't they bury?"

She thought about it. "I'm not sure. But it's something."

At least she knew we weren't talking about burying Handel. 😂

So I explained that the duke meant Handel's gift. He could hear music differently. He could understand it. Even as a child — before any of the training that would come later — there was already something in him that other people could recognize.

And that gave us something much bigger to talk about than Handel.

We started talking about gifts.

I told her that sometimes God gives a person an ability that comes to them more naturally than to others. It doesn't mean they never have to practice — Handel certainly practiced, and a gift always has to be nurtured. But sometimes there's something that seems to have been planted in a person from the very beginning, waiting to be noticed and cared for.

Then she said something that caught me off guard.

"I don't have a talent. I can't draw. I want to be able to draw."

It was such a childlike way of measuring talent. There was something she wished she could do better, so she assumed she had no gift at all.

I told her, first, that she draws beautifully for her age, and that drawing is something she can keep learning as long as she enjoys it. Not being able to do something exactly the way you want to yet doesn't mean you can't learn.

"But you know what I think one of your gifts is?"

She looked at me.

"Music."

I've noticed it since before she could even talk properly. She could hear a melody once and hum it back, right on pitch. Lyrics and tunes stay with her. She has a lovely voice and a good range for a child.

These are little things we've watched quietly over the years. I don't know what she'll do with them someday. She's still so young, and I don't want to decide her future for her simply because I noticed something she's good at.

So I told her that, too. If music is something she wants to nurture one day, Mommy and Daddy will support her. That's one of the reasons we work and save — not so we can design our children's lives for them, but so that when they discover something good they want to pursue, we can hopefully give them the chance to pursue it.

But there was something else I wanted her to understand.

A talent isn't given to us so we can walk around feeling better than everyone else. It isn't something to boast about. And it doesn't even have to become your job.

I told her I believe our gifts are given to us, in part, so we can bring joy — to ourselves, yes, and also to other people.

Music can make your own heart happy.

And then you can use it to make someone else's heart happy too.

Maybe that's one way a gift becomes bigger than the person who received it.

Then, of course, she turned the question back on me.

"Mama, what's your talent?"

And for some reason, that one was harder.

It's so easy to look at our children and tell them what's beautiful in them.

You have a lovely voice.
You're good at drawing.
You notice things.
You remember melodies.
You tell wonderful stories.

But ask an adult what are you good at? and suddenly so many of us grow uncomfortable.

We minimize.

"Oh, nothing really."
"I'm not that good."
"Other people are much better."

And for a moment, I almost did exactly that. I nearly told her, "I don't know. I don't really have a talent."

But I had just spent several minutes teaching my daughter that a gift doesn't mean being the best at something.

So I had to extend the same kindness to myself.

"I think mine is music too," I told her. "But not really singing."

One of the things I can do well, I explained, is listen — especially when many people are singing together.

In a choir, there can be so many different voices: different tones, different strengths, and different ways of singing. But they shouldn't sound like twenty separate people each trying to be heard. They have to learn to sing as one.

And I love listening for that. I can hear where voices aren't blending, where something needs adjusting, and I love helping a choir find that single sound together.

She understood immediately.

"Oh! Like what you do in the kapilya."

Yes.

Exactly like that.

Because the gift I was describing to my daughter isn't something I use to make money. It hasn't made me famous or important. Most people will never even know I can do it.

But I use it.

I use it in service.

When a choir learns to sing as one, the goal isn't for someone listening to think, Wow, that person is talented. The individual voice almost disappears into something larger. In worship, that means using whatever musical ability I have to help create something that glorifies God — so that when the choir sings beautifully, the music can help the congregation feel the message of the hymn and turn their hearts toward worship.

And that is the definition of talent I want my children to grow up with.

Not: What can you do better than everyone else?

But perhaps:

What has been placed in your hands, and what good can you do with it?

Maybe your gift becomes your career someday. Maybe it doesn't. Maybe it earns you money; maybe no one ever pays you for it. Maybe thousands of people see it; maybe only the people sitting beside you ever know.

You can nurture it because it brings you joy. You can work at it, because gifts still require discipline. You can become excellent at something without ever needing that excellence to make you feel more important than anyone else.

And then, whenever you can, you can use it in service.

I don't yet know what all of my daughter's gifts will be.

She's five.

She has a whole lifetime to discover them.

Maybe music will stay part of her life. Maybe drawing will become something she loves to do forever. Maybe there are gifts in her that none of us have even noticed yet.

I don't think it's my job to name them all for her.

Perhaps my job is simply to pay attention. To notice what makes her come alive. To give her chances to practice. To remind her that being bad at something today doesn't mean she can't be good at it tomorrow — and that natural ability is never a substitute for work.

And most of all, to teach her that whatever gifts she discovers are not trophies.

They are things entrusted to her.

Things she can enjoy.
Things she can nurture.
Things she can offer.

All because one morning, a little girl heard about a boy named Handel whose gift was almost buried, then turned to her mother to ask:

"Mama, what's your talent?"