From My Perspective: A Keyboard's Story by Tracy Williamson

It's amazing how life can change so quickly!  Only a week ago I was squashed onto a shelf packed tight in layers of cardboard and plastic packaging.  I couldn't see anything other than the underside of the boxes immediately above me.  All I could hear was the thud of footsteps, the jolting roar of machinery the rustle and rasp of cardboard moving against cardboard. It was dark, it was stultifying; it was never ending.   Is this all there was to life? Why had I been created if it was just to lie here day by day, night by night hoping for a miracle?

But one day that miracle did happen and I am still clacking in amazement at it.  God is real.  He truly does work in us and through us.  

This day began like any other, the nothingness of extreme boredom and hopeless waiting.  I wasn't even sure what I was waiting for exactly, I just somehow knew that life had to be more than this!  

And all of a sudden that 'something more' began to happen.  There I was lying, squashed and hidden when suddenly light dawned in my darkness.  The heavy packages immediately above and below me were pushed aside, a human hand wrapped in blue hovered over my face, and then suddenly I was flying through the air and seeing things I'd never imagined.  The light and glory only lasted a moment as I was then thrown unceremoniously into what I later discovered was a giant sack.  Light completely disappeared and all hell broke loose as the very floor began to roll forward underneath me.  My sack rolled as a thuddering roar started beneath me.  For what seemed like forever I was tipped from side to side, upended and crushed.  My life before was heaven compared to this.

Ah but what I've learnt you see, is that God is always at work in our lives and situations and He had something so amazing planned, something I would never have dreamed of.  All movement suddenly ceased and I lay dazed.  The impenetrable dark broke aside and glorious white light poured in and for the second time in my memories I found myself being carried. I was gently placed upon a carpet.  A bell rang, i heard loud scary noises very close and then a voice exclaiming as I was picked up and carried yet again - 'it's here! that's so wonderful, I'll be able to write again!'

Have you ever experienced that feeling of being stripped and being laid bare?  I felt so vulnerable as all my layers of cardboard and plastic were torn away by eager hands.  At last it was just me, shown in all my thin inadequacy.  What was I?  Nothing but a thin wedge of black hard plastic covered in buttons.  What could I ever do of worth?  It didn't take long for me to be placed in my new permanent home, no longer wrapped in shielding layers, squashed by thousands of other packages. Now it was just me.  Those eager hands pulled my long tail and I heard a click and suddenly something amazing happened.  A power flooded into me.  What was it?  I did not know but I felt more alive than I'd ever felt before.  I lay basking in my new connectedness and it was then that the full miracle finally happened. I felt her hands upon me, no longer placing or pulling me but doing something new.  She was pressing my buttons.  Those buttons I'd never understood before were being pushed, tentatively at first, hesitantly tapping a button on one side then another on my other side.  'That's perfect!' I heard her exclaim, I can see it so well and it types so easily.' 

I felt her fingers caressing me as they picked up speed and my clacking began.  The few times I'd heard my voice I'd nearly died in embarrassment.  I was so noisy, so boring, so, well, clacky! But now something was changing within me as I caught her excitement.  Her fingers were now a veritable whirlwind tapping my every button.  I could hear her exhaled breaths and my song rose in harmony.  I had no idea what I was doing or rather what she was doing with me, but from the depths of my being I knew it was important.  This was what I'd been created for.  I wasn't just a nothing, this was my purpose and through me being me, others would be helped and uplifted.  I heard her muttering, 'I can see these keys so easily, its perfect for me, I'm so glad I chose this one.'  My heart soared as I finally understood.  I was created.  I was chosen.  I had a unique calling.  I wasn't just an odd, hard slab of plastic.  I was empowering my new owner to be all that she was created to be. I marvelled as her hands continued to sing upon my buttons and out of the corner of my eye I noticed something incredible.  That on the bright, light square just above me, a shape appeared  every time I was pressed.  My button went down and a black shape appeared!  How could that be?  Her fingers flew and a storm of black shapes came and the light bright square became full! 

How awesome.  Somehow I understood that these mysterious black shapes settling just above me were brought about by me.  Without me they couldn't happen, they would never be.  But with me in place, connected to this strange surge of life, with her hands caressing me I knew that every part of me counted and was being used to create something wonderful.  All the trauma leading up to this moment had been worth it.  I was home, connected, wanted, created and chosen to fulfil a unique destiny.  there would be no greater joy than to work in partnership with my new owner. She using me to the full and me empowering her to be. 

Tracy Williamson who is deaf and partially sighted, is a writer and speaker working for MBM Trust together with Marilyn Baker, the blind Gospel Singer. www.mbm-ministries.org  Tracy and Marilyn have just written their joint memoir A Beautiful Tapestry which will be published by Authentic Media this November.