The Page Turn

It was the night of our community’s annual Gospel Concert—the night when all of the local area church choirs gather together and sing a concert for the community. 

I am the accompanist for our Senior Choir and the organist at our church. I look forward to this event very much each year as it is such a wonderful evening of music. 

Yet as I sat with my fellow choir members that night in the large sanctuary listening to each choir sing their beautiful anthems, my mind was filled with worry and anxiety over various issues I was dealing with in my life at the time. 

One of the least of those worries was a page turn in the music that I was having trouble making in one of the songs I would be playing on the piano that night.  

I had practiced the music and the page turn many times, but it was not as smooth as I would have liked it to be. I prayed that God would calm my spirit and help me to enjoy the concert instead of being anxious and worried. Thankfully that prayer was answered. As I continued to listen to the beautiful music around me, I was able to enter into an attitude of worship and started to forget about my problems.
 
Soon it was time for the combined choirs to sing the song that had the difficult page turn. It was the final anthem to be sung that night, a beautiful song called Within These Walls. 

I took my place at the piano bench and made sure that the bottom corner of my page of music was folded over a little bit so it would be easier to grab and turn when the time came. The choir director motioned for me to begin playing the song. Then the choir lifted their voices to the music I was playing.  

I couldn’t help but again enter into an attitude of worship as I heard the beautiful music fill the sanctuary.  

It was soon time for the page turn I was concerned about. But as I was getting ready to lift my left hand from the piano keys to turn the page of music, I noticed that the page was starting to turn on its own. I watched in amazement as the page continued to turn the whole way and then lay flat!  It was like another piano player or a person who could read music was sitting on the bench next to me and knew the exact moment when to turn the page! 

The music page stayed there perfectly and my hand never had to leave the keyboard. In all my years of playing the piano and organ, I had never seen anything like this before! Sure, there are times when your music blows in a breeze, but never as smoothly as this was. There was no doubt in my mind that the hand of God or one of his angels turned my page of music for me that night.