Whales and Hymns...and things...


As I've been sleeping in the bottom of my storm-tossed boat, I have had one eye open, watching for the whale that God might send my way. It could be a misread on my part, but I have had this odd compulsion these last few days to read the lyrics of hymns. First, I started with The Baptist Hymnal...an old fav' of mine...the hymnal from which I first learned to play the piano.
Last night, I couldn't find Be Still, My Soul in The Baptist Hymnal, so switched to The Broadman Hymnal (I have quite a few hymnals around my house...in case you were wondering...). The Broadman belonged to my grandparents, and in this case I guess, to Mt. Gilead Baptist Church, because the church name is embossed on the cover. For all of my lifetime, the cornerstone for Mt. Gilead leaned up against a brick pillar on my grandparents' carport. In the early 60's, someone burned the church down, and when it was rebuilt, the old cornerstone was picked up by my Grandaddy, I suppose, and carried up to his house for safekeeping. I share this just to say that Mt. Gilead was a cornerstone, or maybe I should say a touchstone...of my early Christian formation...the music we sang there is very much a part of what has carried me through the ups and downs of life. My Uncle Russell led the singing, and my Aunt Tressie played the piano...cousins and other relatives filled the pews around me every summer when we would visit...the church was to me, family.
So tonight, I'm reading the words to hymns, and this one caught my attention:
Wonderful, Wonderful Jesus
Annie Russell Ernest O. Sellers
There is never a day so dreary, there is never a night so long,
But the soul that is trusting Jesus will somewhere find a song.
Wonderful, wonderful Jesus,
In the heart he implanteth a song:
A song of deliverance, of courage and strength,
In the heart he implanteth a song.
Do you suppose there's a way for us to yield ourselves over to something like the message in this song, even though we may not feel like it? ...the soul that is trusting Jesus will somewhere find a song... I'm working on myself these days...but the cynical side of me says that this song was written by somebody who was one of those annoyingly perky optimists...and not by someone who was really struggling with a long and dreary night of the soul...
Maybe I could try optimism...just to see what happens...and I can say that I found a song...in the hymnal...and it spoke to me.

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