Everybody's Got Their Pain

Happy March to all.

I get to sing and goof around with a bunch of old people
tomorrow morning. This music therapy thing just keeps
getting better.

Also, God' strength, grace and mercy just keeps getting
better.

I ran across the original lyrics to the hymn "Come, Thou
Fount of Every Blessing" written back in 1758. They are
incredible, don't you agree:

Come, Thou Fount of every blessing,
Tune my heart to sing Thy grace;
Streams of mercy, never ceasing,
Call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
Sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount! I'm fixed upon it,
Mount of Thy redeeming love.

Sorrowing I shall be in spirit,
Till released from flesh and sin,
Yet from what I do inherit,
Here Thy praises I'll begin;
Here I raise my Ebenezer;
Here BY THY GREAT HELP I've come;
And I hope, by Thy good pleasure,
Safely to arrive at home.

Jesus sought me when a stranger,
Wandering from the fold of God;
He, to rescue me from danger,
Interposed His precious blood;
How His kindness yet pursues me
Mortal tongue can never tell,
Clothed in flesh, till death shall loose me
I cannot proclaim it well.

O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I'm constrained to be!
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
HERE'S MY HEART, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.

O that day when freed from sinning,
I shall see Thy lovely face;
Clothed then in blood washed linen
How I'll sing Thy sovereign grace;
Come, my Lord, no longer tarry,
Take my ransomed soul away;
Send thine angels now to carry
Me to realms of endless day.

Wow, that just hits the spot tonight. Thank you Reverend
Robertson. You just brightened my evening.

So I've been stuck in some sorrow, on and off,
brought on by the troubles of life and my own
inability to percieve things clearly.
(And probably exacerbated by unfriendly
brain chemicals - sometimes they hit hard)
But God is still faithful, and still helping me to
grow and not get stuck too long.

My friend Naomi and I have started praying together weekly
and this has helped tremendously. Things are looking up.

I've come to realize that when things don't look up, it's not
that God is being mean, it's that He's teaching me something,
and helping me to grow. That's not always easy to accept,
but I thoroughly believe that He is always present, always near,
just as it says in Acts 17:27. If it doesn't feel like He's near,
the problem is with the lens I'm looking through, not the
reality of His love and presence.

Because of these things, I can move on with my life.
Here I go, another little faltering step at a time.

As Naomi reminded me last night...you only have to have
a mustard seed of faith. Thank God for that.