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Writer's pictureSeattle ALC

Sing unto Him

“Sing unto him, sing psalms unto him: talk ye of all his wondrous works.” Psalms 105:2 My sister Maija was gifted a piano by a coworker back in 2006. She did not have room to store it, so she asked if we would be willing to keep it at our new house. We agreed and on the same day that we were moving in, I was able to get the help of some cousins to go and pick it up and bring it home. Neither Anna or myself could play, so it sat in our living room for many years. Just a place to gather dust and for our little kids to make noise on. As the years went by, I decided that I didn’t want this 800 pound instrument clogging up the living room anymore. I asked if my sister wanted it brought to her house, and she admitted to me that she really didn’t want it either.

My next option was to give it away for free. I posted an ad on Craigslist and weeks went by without any interest. One day I decided to change the posting from free to “for sale”. I added a price of $100. Within an hour I had several requests. Working my way through them, I began to experience the dark side of these kinds of websites. Other humans trying to scam me out of my possession as well as my money. Multiple offers came with excuses of why they couldn’t personally meet me, but if I wired them $200 they would send me $100 in exchange and they would have a shipper pick up the piano. I quickly took the ad off but the scams persisted. They finally quit after I told all of them that while I might have been born in the morning, it wasn’t that morning.

Resigned to the fact that I wasn’t going to ever get rid of this piano, it once again just became a side table and noise box. All until a couple years ago when my daughters started showing interest in learning to play. We agreed that they could try out an online teaching resource and they began to plunk away. Each time I heard them trying, I got a charge out of the fact that at least this piano that we had hardly used was getting a workout.

All of this backstory, leads me to a night last month as I walked down the sidewalk towards the front door. It had been a long stress filled day at work, and my mind was still lost in the problems we encounter in the work world. From outside I could hear the piano being played, and I recognized the tune immediately. It was from the Lenten hymn “There is a fountain filled with blood”. I hesitated to listen a bit more, and then walked in the door with tears in my eyes. It felt like I had been removed from the struggle and self focus of this life into a place of reassurance. I stepped into what the Prophet Isaiah calls “peaceable habitation, and in sure dwellings, and in quiet resting places”.

I rejoiced In that moment and knew why I had been unable to get rid of this piano. If all the years I had wanted it gone, and couldn’t find a way to do it, hung on the fact that I needed to hear that tune that evening it was worth it. It doesn’t matter how many times I’ve been reminded of it, I never seem to learn that God knows best. I live each day only thinking what might be best for me at that moment. God sees every day and moment of our lives. It seemed to me unwise to hang on to a piano that wasn’t played for 15 years, but God knew how comforting it would be for us to hear our favorite hymns being played everyday. Those tunes that would cause us to sing along and be reminded of the Gospel that is found in them.

That saving Gospel such as the blood that flowed from the veins of God’s son, and the cleansing power it has, that causes us to lose all of sins guilty stains. This is indeed his wondrous work that we can be strengthened to proclaim to a world which is lost and dying. May we be granted that occasion of declaring his suffering, his death and his glorious resurrection until he comes again. Praise God for his unspeakable mercies to us in Christ! Hans Lampinen

Submitted by Pastor Stan

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