A recent lunch with a friend led to the best conversation, much of it about music. It brought back such happy memories… favorite songs, former music teachers… and then, the flashback. It happened when I remembered the metronome.

Only one of my three piano teachers used it. Mrs. Taylor. She didn’t always use it, but sometimes she would put that pendulum in motion and it was more than my 11-year-old nerves could bear. Focusing on the notes became impossible over the ticking of that pyramid-shaped instrument of torture and the demand that I should follow it.

At the ripe age of eleven I had begun to learn how to add feeling to music by following those foreign words like allegro for cheerful, and pianissimo for very gently or softly, and other terms long since forgotten. I also decided I could add to the piece’s feeling by altering its speed. Mrs. Taylor disagreed. She would give me a couple of chances to follow her suggestions and when I didn’t respond, she would set the correct tempo and the torturous ticking would begin.

Decades later I’ve come to learn that that life may be like Forrest Gump said, like a box of chocolates, but it is not like a piano solo. Staying with the correct time matters when others come alongside bringing their own instruments. We all find ourselves relying on the same timing, the timing of the Composer. When we follow it, we have a symphony. When we don’t, it’s a train wreck.

My choices to change the Composer’s timing have sometimes derailed life’s symphony for people whose parts mine were intended to blend with. All because I believed my timing was more meaningful. Like trusting the timing of a third-year student over the timeless talents of Burgmüller and Chopin. Then again, trusting timing that often seemed entirely too slow has resulted in music I never dreamed I would ever hear.

Thank you, Mrs. Taylor, for teaching me the importance of the Composer’s timing. I sometimes find myself again in need of Someone to set that pendulum in motion, so we can come together in a Divine symphony I’ve come to treasure.

Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end.

Ecclesiastes 3:11