Pianos and Prayers and Perfect Plans

I have been praying for a piano. The reason I have not had one in my house for the last ten years is a rather ugly story I don't like to tell because I am definitely not the heroine of it. Lately, though, I've really been missing a piano in the house. We have lots of space for one now, and I remember times when some of my best praying was done at a keyboard with an old hymnbook in front of me.

     So I began to pray for one. I had as a figure in my head maybe $200 that I could spend, but didn't know where I'd ever find a piano for that.

     A month or so ago, my daughter-in-law found one on Kijiji, for free, and sent me the link. When I investigated, I discovered it was about two blocks from my house! I figured this must be God's answer to my prayer. It was pretty, too.

     I went over to have a look. The sound was anything but pretty. It was downright gruesome. Not that I'm exactly Billy Joel, mind you. But still. At least Steinway never came down and wiped his name off the piano whenever I started to play. (That's an old Bob Hope joke.)

     I don't know enough about pianos to know if it was reparable, and it was a heavy brute. I'd hate to go to all the trouble of lining up muscles to wrestle the thing home and then spend a fortune on something that may never sound right. I made a half-hearted attempt to call the piano tuner, but didn't really have peace about pursuing it further.

     Meanwhile, my pianist friend Julianne recommended an electric one with weighted keys. They play like an acoustic, but are much lighter, smaller, and don't go out of tune. Sounded great, but that put me back in square one with my impossibly small budget.

     Until yesterday. My friend Tracy put an electric piano, with weighted keys, up for sale on her Facebook status. The price? $200. Long story short, here it is in my living room.

     I pulled my old hymnbook off the shelf and purposefully selected the very first song I would play on it: In My Heart There Rings a Melody!