Out of Tune

Several years ago, I was able to purchase a piano for our home.  Pianos are expensive.  I had saved 40,000 Icelandic kronurs, about 400 US dollars.  For this price, I knew it would be used and probably even old and out of tune.  I was right.

This piano built in Germany in 1919 somehow made its way to Iceland.  It would be interesting to know the story of that passage and of the owners of it over the past almost 100 years.  One story, could it tell stories, would be of our struggle getting it into our second floor apartment.  The inside of this thing is, as best we can tell, cast iron covered in brass. After hours, yes, hours struggling up the stairs, we made it to the entrance of our apartment.  My husband, not a weak man, looked at me gasping for breath and said, "Honey, I love you. Pick a spot for this thing. I am never moving it again." I did. Then I asked him to move it. He's such a softy. I am sure this piano holds many other family stories over the past century.

One thing was certain, it was old and out of tune, badly so.  Not one key agreed with another.  The sound was very unpleasant.  We tried singing with it. My husband tried playing his guitar then clarinet with it. There was no hope for this noise. As is the way of things, other priorities came before paying for someone to come tune it.  For another several years, it sat in my living room only once in a while being played when somebody clunked out "Heart and Soul."

When my husband asked what I wanted for Christmas this year, I told him that I wanted my piano tuned.  The piano tuner came last week.  It started out rough but got a little better as he worked.  I asked him if it were too old to tune. His reply struck a chord in my heart:

"It is too old and stiff to tune completely.  The strings would snap. I can tune the strings to match each other, but I cannot tune the piano to the proper key. It will not sound right played with other instruments.  It will sound alright on its own, but it will always be a little flat."

Immediately I thought of my own heart.  Am I so old and stiff that I am out of tune with my family or fellow believers? Do I sound alright on my own, but can never really be in harmony with another instrument, another Christian? What about being in harmony with the Master of Music, the proper key? Am I in tune with Him, or does my life's music fall flat?

I was so excited to get my piano tuned.  Now I am challenged to keep my heart strings tight and tuned so that the sound of my life does not fall flat.

2 Chronicles 5:13-14  It came even to pass, as the trumpeters and singers were as one, to make one sound to be heard in praising and thanking the Lord; and when they lifted up their voice with the trumpets and cymbals and instruments of musick, and praised the Lord, saying, For he is good; for his mercy endureth forever: that then the house was filled with a cloud, even the house of the Lord; So that the priests could not stand to minister by reason of the cloud: for the glory of the Lord had filled the house of God.

By the way, we have been enjoying the Christmas season singing and playing our newly tuned piano.

Patrick and Vicki Weimer serving in Iceland since 1999

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