"When I Get Carried Away"

We moved to a new town when I was seven years old. It was right in the middle of the school year, and I entered Mrs. Hewell's second grade classroom as the new kid. It was excruciating for someone as shy as I was. I couldn't find words to bridge the chasm that seemed to separate me from everyone else.

One day, while I was in the restroom, a few of the girls came in. They didn't know I was there, and I soon realized they were talking about me. They were saying they didn't like me because I was so stuck-up. I waited until they all left before stepping out - my heart was broken. I desperately wanted them to understand that it was only because I was shy.

All these many years later, I still worry about being misunderstood. Part of being shy, for me, means that I am not very demonstrative. I envy those who cry easily, who bubble over with enthusiastic gratitude and jump up and down with joy; the ones who dance with abandon during praise and worship. It isn't that I don't do all of those things deep inside myself. It's just that somehow they don't make it to the surface when I'm with other people.

When I am alone the tears flow freely; I dance and sing to praise music and fall on my face in gratitude. It would be easy for others to look at me and think I don't feel anything; to wonder if I am truly grateful for something they have given me. I long to be better at it because the last thing I would ever want to do is hurt someone's feelings.

There is a song that I like to think was written just for me. It gives me great hope and makes me dance and sing - when I'm alone here at home of course! Here are the words:

"When I Get Carried Away"

"Well, I don’t know why I become a little shy
When I get around a whole lotta people
And I can’t figure out why I never can shout
About the love that floods my soul.
I must confess, I can’t express
The feelings deep inside me;
The things I know and cannot show
One day will overflow.

I’m gonna let the glory roll when the roll is called in glory.
I’m gonna get beside of myself when I get beside the king that day.
I’m gonna have the time of my life when the time of my life is over.
I’m gonna get carried away when I get carried away.

Well, I’ll pass the clouds and shout so loud,
It may sound like thunder.
My tearful eyes may fill the skies
Until it looks like rain.
When I leave this world past the gates of pearl
And stand before my Savior,
I let my soul let the glory roll
If from the roll He calls my name.

I’m gonna let the glory roll when the roll is called in glory.
I’m gonna get beside of myself when I get beside the king that day.
I’m gonna have the time of my life when the time of my life is over.
I’m gonna get carried away when I get carried away."

Phil Cross

And this is how it sounds when Ivan Parker sings it:



Oh yeah - one of these days I'm gonna let the glory roll!

Blessings,
Linda

A Moment

The cold front blew in late Thanksgiving Day. It is always the same. The wind comes with sudden force, as though someone had thrown the switch on a gigantic fan,and a balmy day suddenly turns cold. We had arrived wearing short-sleeved shirts and left wishing for winter jackets to cover our bare arms. We also left with two gifts - our granddaughters, coming to spend the night.

The air was crisp and cold the next morning, and bright sunshine filtered in through the kitchen windows. We sat at the kitchen table eating Papa's scrambled eggs with sausage and toast. They chattered away about the things they have been doing, school and plans for the day. Watching "Cinderella" (I've lost count of how many times we've watched it together.)was definitely on the list along with playing games, building with legos and a trip to McDonald's for lunch.

I told them it all sounded good, but I had a little something I thought they might enjoy doing first. Earlier in the week, we had purchased little wooden ornaments, paint and paintbrushes in the hope that they might enjoy making something special for their Christmas tree. Happily, they decided that was a great idea! We cleared the table and got out all the supplies.

while they painted, I filled the kitchen sink with hot soapy water and for a moment just stood quietly absorbing the scene. Christmas music played softly in the background. The girls sat at the table with Papa, engrossed in decorating wreaths, painting angels' wings and mixing colors, little heads bent in deep concentration. There was such a sense of peace and joy bubbled up in my heart. I could hardly hold back the tears.

I am so deeply grateful.







Thank You Lord:
- for these precious girls
- for bright, sunshine and crisp, cold air
- for music
- for the way this miraculous season fills the heart with joy and peace
- for the legacy of faith in our family; we are so richly blessed
- for this life, this day, this moment

linking with Ann today at the Gratitude Community
and L.L. Barkat's "On In and Around Mondays"

Blessings,
Linda

"The Solid Rock"

"My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness;
I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus' name.

Chorus:
On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand; all other ground is sinking sand,
all other ground is sinking sand.

When darkness seems to hide His face, I rest on His unchanging grace;
In every high and stormy gale, my anchor holds within the vale.

His oath, His covenant, His blood, support me in the whelming flood;
When all around my soul gives way, He then is all my hope and stay.

When He shall come with trumpet sound, oh, may I then in Him be found;
Dressed in His righteousness alone, faultless to stand before the throne."

Edward Mote




On January 21, 1797 Edward Mote was born into a family that was not only very poor but also had no belief in God. He wrote about his growing up years: "My Sundays were spent in the streets. So ignorant was I that I did not know that there was a God." There was not even a Bible in the school he attended.

When he was old enough, he was apprenticed to a cabinet maker and was quite successful in that trade. It was his master who took him to hear the famed preacher John Hyatt one evening. After hearing the gospel message, Mote received Jesus as His Savior.

He settled in a suburb of London where he earned a reputation as a skilled craftsman and a devoted churchman. When he was fifty-five he was instrumental in the building of a Baptist church in Horsham, Sussex, England. He became the Pastor of that church and served there for twenty-one years when ill health caused him to retire. He died one year later.

Just before his death he is quoted as saying, "The truths I have been preaching, I am now living upon, and they do very well to die upon."
"For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ." 1 Corinthians 3:11

Blessings,
Linda

"O For A Thousand Tongues

"O, for a thousand tongues to sing my great Redeemer's praise
The glories of my God and King, the triumphs of His grace.

My gracious Master and my God, assist me to proclaim,
To spread thro' all the earth abroad, the honors of Thy name.

Jesus! the name that charms our fears, that bids our sorrows cease;
'Tis music in the sinner's ears, 'tis life and health and peace.

He breaks the power of canceled sin, He sets the prisoner free;
His blood can make the foulest clean; His blood availed for me.

Hear Him, ye dear; His praise, ye dumb, Your loosened tongues employ;
Ye blind, behold your Savior come; and leap, ye lame, for joy."

Charles Wesley

May the blessing of His presence fill your hearts and homes with love this Thanksgiving Day.

Linda

"God Wants To Hear You Sing"

It is time to write my post and link my heart with the hearts of others at Ann's Gratitude Community as we count the blessings that have come to us from the Father's hand. Usually I try to list all of those special moments when I have seen His grace and goodness in my life and the lives of those around me. They are, inevitably, the good moments - the joy and unexpected glimpses of His presence.

Some weeks it is a bit more difficult to write a long list - not because He is any less than who He always is, but because I am somehow not able to see the blessings. They are obscured by clouds of darkness. It is at those times I remember that He has told me to "give thanks in all circumstance..." (I Thess. 5:18)- to tell my heart who He is and what He has done. And it is in the telling that gratitude begins to fill the dark corners of my heart and indefinable joy bubbles to the surface.

It has been a week filled with joy and sorrow, good things and hard things, hope and disappointment. I wasn't going to write a post today. Then I heard this song, and my heart remembered.

"God Wants to Hear You Sing"

Their chains were fastened tight
Down at the jail that night
Still Paul and Silas would not be dismayed
They said, “It’s time to lift our voice, sing praises to the Lord
Let’s prove that we will trust Him come what may”

God wants to hear you sing
When the waves are crashing ’round you
When the fiery darts surround you
When despair is all you see
God wants to hear your voice
When the wisest man has spoken
And says, “Your circumstance is as hopeless as can be”
That’s when God wants to hear you sing

He loves to hear our praise on our cheerful days
When the pleasant times outweigh the bad, by far
But when suffering comes along
And we still sing Him songs
That is when we bless the Father’s heart."

Rodney Griffin

I thank You Father:

- for Your promise to never leave us or forsake us

- for the comfort of knowing that You are the same yesterday, today and forever

- that Your plans for our lives are good plans

- that Your love is unconditional and Your grace immeasurable

- that You are good, all the time

- for the perfect joy of time spent with loved ones

- for laughter and tears

- for shared heartache and tender embraces

- for listening hearts

- for good books, worn from the reading, that bring such a sense of comfort and peace

- for grandchildren who grow inches when your back is turned for a few seconds

- for answered prayer and unanswered prayer and the knowledge that You see beyond this moment and know what is best



linking to Ann's Gratitude Community

Blessings,
Linda

"Open My Eyes That I May See"

"Open my eyes, that I may see
Glimpses of truth Thou hast for me
Place in my hands the wonderful key
That shall unclasp and set me free.
Silently now I wait for Thee,
Ready my God, Thy will to see,
Open my eyes, illumine me,
Spirit divine.

Open my ears, that I may hear
Voices of truth Thou sendest clear
And while the wave notes fall on my ear,
Everything false will disappear.
Silently now I wait for Thee,
Ready my God, Thy will to see,
Open my ears, illumine me,
Spirit divine.

Open my mouth, and let me bear,
Gladly the warm truth everywhere
Open my heart and let me prepare
Love with Thy children thus to share.
Silently now I wait for Thee,
Ready my God, Thy will to see,
Open my heart, illumine me,
Spirit divine."

Clara H. Fiske Scott

Clara was born in 1841 in Elk Grove, Illinois. In 1856 she attended a musical institute in Chicago and then went on to teach music at the Ladies Seminary in Lyons, Iowa. She married Henry Clay Scott in 1861.

In 1882 she published The Royal Anthem Book. It contained over three hundred hymns that she had written and was the first anthem collection ever published by a woman.

She died, tragically, on June 21, 1897 in a buggy accident.


In an interesting side-note, the hymnal I am using lists Charles H. Scott as the author of this hymn. A little mystery....perhaps just a bit of confusion about the first name.

Blessings,
Linda

Pretending

Hidden beneath the surface of an extremely shy personality, there was a little girl who wanted to be a star. In her own home she was a ballerina, but when her Mommy took her to dancing class she cried and wanted only to rush back to that place of safety. She wanted to be popular and out-going, but cried and cried for days when she had to go to kindergarten, sitting quietly alone and speaking to no one.

It seemed she just couldn't be what she so envied in others, but she could pretend she was. She could be Shirley Temple, singing and dancing in the confines of her own little room or a beautiful princess dressed in borrowed clothing.

When she got older, she tried desperately hard to be like the popular girls - but naturally curly hair just won't cooperate and stay straight, and making clever conversation was like speaking a foreign tongue. She pored over magazines, longing to look like the models pictured there, imagining that somehow she did.

Eventually she found her place in the hierarchy of her high school, coming out of her shell and participating in everything she could fit into her schedule - and then some. But there was always that longing to be like someone else - someone who seemed to be so much her superior. She spent long quiet hours, imagining that she was.

It wasn't something she outgrew in adulthood. It simply changed a bit. Instead of longing to be like someone she knew - or like one of the beautiful, gifted people she read about or saw on television or in the movies - her focus shifted to well- known Christian women. She would read about their lives and long to be just like them. Once again, she imagined herself to be something other than what she was - trying to pattern her life after theirs. It became a substitute for spending time nurturing her relationship with the Lord.

Somewhere along the way, the emptiness of pretending to be something she was not became too much to bear. She finally began to understand that she was special in the most important way that mattered. She was special to the Father. And not only special - but uniquely created by His own design. She began to feel more comfortable in her own skin - to live in the reality of who He had created her to be.

I am a grandmother now, and the days of pretending I am someone else have slipped away. However, there is, I have found, still that temptation to look at the lives of others and long to be just like them. It subtly creeps in when I read blogs written by women whom I cannot help but admire. There is a longing to be more, to be better, to do better - to be like them.

Once again the Father gently reminds me that He likes me just fine the way I am. Certainly there are things to work on - and that longing is good as long as it is not born out of a need to be just like someone else or to gain the approval of others. When I long to be more like Him, to be fully all He intended me to be, He draws me to Himself and says, "Yes."

linking to Emily's imperfect prose

Blessings,
Linda

P.S. This was a difficult one to write, but I couldn't seem to get away from it.