Heart-Tuning

 The piano in my living room seems to speak for all of us after the last few months we've lived through... 

It is out of tune, dull, and losing life by the minute. Notes no longer sound clearly, and it's been in desperate need of a tuner for some time. Thanks to lockdowns and limited social access in my home due to immune-compromised family members, there has been no way to bring someone in to set the old thing right. To make it sing again. 

And I've stopped playing it. Stopped listening to it...because the notes just don't feel right anymore. 

And somehow, that piano says what my heart is feeling. Perhaps after all that's happened, I've stopped singing a bit, too. Stopped praising. Stopped blessing. And I think all of us, if we were honest, feel a bit out of tune. Out of rhythm. Out of sync. 

The past year took its toll - tried to steal our joy, grab our hope, rip apart our sense of normal. And the longer the heaviness lay, the more we all fought to see God...to believe. It's like the tune wasn't so easy to play anymore. The dance slowed and the feet dragged as well struggled to still find the music when it all felt like it had died. 

Tune all our hearts, Lord. We are desperate. 

For sometime now, my song has been the discordant one - often sung in the minor-lament, devoid of any major-lift. A broken hallelujah if there ever was one. Grief and all things lost and final turned the notes into a sacrifice of praise... an offering of whatever song there was inside instead of the optimal cheery tune. 

Perhaps this is what it means to create an altar to God in whatever space you find yourself. In the ancient days, the early believers raised stones of remembrance so that God's faithfulness could be recalled in future times. And somehow, I think we modern-Christians miss the point when we think we can only thank God when things have gone according to plan... our plan. 

To have our hearts tuned is to make a space of worship anywhere that God can be found. To acknowledge past, present, and continued Grace in any place and not just the ones that seem the most ideal. To at least sing a minor key is better than to sing in no key at all. To praise God even when punctuated with "why's" is to still bless Him even if the song doesn't seem to be adequate or optimal. 

Maybe, like me, your heart-song has gone flat, too. Maybe you are also trying to find the music after something that knocked you down hard, and a new year has you hoping that you'll discover the tune  again. That the dance you lost the steps to will be found once more. 

In all our days, however difficult, "streams of mercy never ceasing call for sounds of loudest praise." The love, the goodness is forever being poured out - even when it appears as if it has stopped altogether. By His help, we've come this far. The One who sought us strangers in our wandering has rescued and bought us with His own sacrifice and that fact alone ought to raise thanks-giving in our souls, even when  darkness feels the heaviest. 

Grace that called us to His side still binds us now with unbreakable ties, always proving, always showing that favor leads the way. Days may be hard, but Light still beams and hope still shines. Still moves us forward though, at times, imperceptibly. The keys still sound even in when out-of-tune. 

Soon, the Tuner will find His way here, and the song will one day feel right again. But until then, we sit in the tension of  the unresolved. We bear with the strain of the uncertain. And we trust that, in time, the music will still come to life.