The Marks of Effort

When I was in elementary school, I was on the swim team. My mother hoped I would learn to play the piano like my older sister, but I loved swimming. While my sister’s hands danced gracefully across the piano keys, I was busy snorting water up my nose and flailing in the deep end, struggling to stay afloat where my feet couldn’t even touch the bottom. No matter how hard I tried, my body simply wouldn’t float. While everyone else propelled themselves forward with steady arm strokes, I lagged behind, gripping a kickboard with both hands and practicing nothing but kicking. It was embarrassing to be the only one still doing kicks while everyone else had already moved on to swimming freestyle laps. But after persevering through those tearful days of practice, I was finally rewarded. At last, my coach told me I was ready to learn the freestyle. From then on, my skills steadily improved, and before long, I was completing lap training faster than anyone else.

When I returned home after practice, I could hear my sister playing the piano even before I reached the front door. As her skills improved day by day, I simply assumed that playing came easily to her. But one day, I happened to look through her practice notebook. Inside were drawings of bunches of grapes, with each grape carefully colored in. Every time she practiced, she filled in another grape. Only then did I realize that each grape represented the fruit of the effort I had never seen.

Then the swimming pool closed, and I quit swimming. My sister, however, continued practicing the piano at home. Whether she was happy, angry, or frustrated, she always found her way back to the piano. Before long, she had reached the point where she could master a piece so difficult that anyone who heard it would exclaim, “Wow!” after only a few days of practice.

Some people may be born with exceptional talent, but through my years of swim training and by watching my sister, I learned that nothing is ever truly gained without effort. Effort always leaves its mark; only the time it takes for those results to appear differs from person to person.

Isn’t our life of faith much the same? Love, gratitude, joy, gentleness, self-control, forgiveness—these are not virtues we can fully possess overnight. To love, we must practice looking at others with warm and compassionate eyes. To be grateful, we must keep practicing words of love.

I long to be transformed into the likeness of God, so I keep practicing these virtues while examining and reflecting on myself. Even though the changes are not immediately visible, I can sense something quietly taking place within me. As I draw closer to God’s word and seek His help through prayer, I look forward to seeing myself grow little by little. In time, I hope to become a child of love who perfectly resembles God.