music

fast falls the eventide

/ abby hummel

Abide with me: fast falls the eventide
The darkness deepens; Lord with me abide
When other helpers fail and comforts flee
Help of the helpless, Oh abide with me.

Swift to it’s close ebbs out life’s little day
Earth’s joys grow dim, it’s glories pass away
Change and decay in all around I see
Oh Thou who changest not, abide with me.

My plan of waking up early this month has not gone very well.  Even though Aaron and I both agreed this was something we would work on together, it’s been basically one big flop. It’s humbling to realize how helpless we truly are. This week, with the spring ahead time change looming in the near future, we’re trying to get back to our roots and have a bed-time. This new goal is a bedtime with a bedtime routine that doesn’t involve computers or heavy activity or distraction. And like the days of yore where we got tucked in and had “reading time” before lights out, we’re trying to tuck ourselves in for a little quiet time to wrap up the day. Just some collection of things like a tall glass of water or a mug of peppermint tea, my journal, a hymnal, a Bible, a book, a card to send to a friend. I need this intimate little compline to finish the day with rest, balance, reflection, gratefulness, peace and reverence to  start afresh with a clean and willing heart.

I need Thy presence ev’ry passing hour
What but thy grace can foil the tempter’s pow’r?
Who, like Thyself, my guide and stay can be?
Through clouds and sunshine, oh abide with me.

Words by Henry Lyte. Hymntune “Eventide” by William Monk.

a valley exalted

/ abby hummel

Every Valley Shall Be Exalted

 

Last week I had the privilege of singing Handel’s Messiah with a community orchestra. I love the entire Oratorio and we listen to it frequently at home, but what a powerful experience to be there in the midst of it all. Just feet away from soloists and a small orchestra – oboes! violins! a harpsichord! And the astounding way Handel expresses the scriptural text with his masterful composing! I can barely describe what a fabulous, moving, spiritual experience this was.

 

I’ve heard this all many times, but I was richly blessed by the very opening:
Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem and cry unto her that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned. The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness: prepare ye the way of the Lord. Make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill made low; the crooked straight and the rough places plain.

And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.

How beautiful that this is the first statement we hear in a work written to tell the story of the Messiah. Comfort. He came (and is coming again) to comfort His people.

How appropriate to consider the voice crying out in the wilderness during Advent! And is not this “wild desert” so often an apt description of my own heart? Yet in those times of seeming desolation, He always comes. So as we celebrate the season anticipating Christ’s arrival – both the remembrance of his birth and the glorious revelation all flesh shall see together when he returns – I cling to Him. This is my prayer:

Cry out and be heard in my wilderness.
Make straight in my desert a highway.
Make what is crooked in my heart straight.
Exalt me in my valleys and make my rough places plain.

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great is thy faithfulness: a reflection on thanksgiving

/ abby hummel

It seems a little backwards to post this after the holiday, but I’ve been thinking about Thanksgiving lately. Most of these thoughts really started after a sermon that touched on the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector, where the Pharisee prays “Thank you that I am not like other people” and the tax collector beats his breast in sorrow and says “Lord have mercy on me, a sinner!” The passage clearly demonstrates that a thankful heart comes from a humble spirit. Thankfulness is not just about the words “thank you”, but about what is going on in my heart and how grateful I am for God’s grace to me. I mean, the Pharisee offered thanks to God and had “good habits” to go alongside his devotion, but his thanks came from the things he had done. The tax collector, in humility, recognized his great failures and sin. Maybe he was just thankful that God would even listen to him. And so our celebration of Thanksgiving should follow that example and reflect our gratefulness that God faithfully listens and cares for us.

It’s easy to lose sight of that, isn’t it? And when now, for a little while (ha) you have had to suffer trials of many kinds, it is easy to feel lost, like you are drowning in pain with little for which to be grateful.

Perhaps for this reason, scripture and Christian history give many examples of God’s goodness and provision, that we may cling to the enduring promises of His love and mercy to us. We see that Jehovah Jireh provides for the needs of his people: with a mighty hand and outstretched arm, Moses leads God’s people out of Egypt; Israelite David slays the Philistine Goliath saying “You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty!”; Gideon obediently rescues Israel from the oppression of the Midianites; Complete and final victory over sin and death is in the Messiah, Jesus. And continuing from the New Testament into the present age, Christianity recounts the stories of Stephen, the first Martyr; Augustine of Hippo, turned from a life of promiscuity and philosophy to purity and devotion in leading the church and finalizing the canon of Scripture;  Countless church leaders who instituted the creeds of our faith and guided Christians in the path of orthodox belief; In the spirit of Thanksgiving, we remember the Pilgrims who found their freedom to worship at Plymouth Rock; Elisabeth Elliot ministered to the people who murdered her husband, and they all convert to Christianity! For God’s faithfulness, which extends far beyond our lifespan to the beginning of all time, we are grateful. We have these saints leaving the example of God faithfully guiding and providing for His people. He certainly does the same for us even today. So when it is hard to see what exactly to be thankful for, I look back to these stories and retrain my heart towards gratitude. The faithfulness that we see through all history is the same faithfulness he extends to us.

Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my Father
There is no shadow of turning with Thee
Thou changest not, Thy compassions they fail not
As Thou has been, Thou forever will be
Great is Thy faithfulness! Great is Thy faithfulness!
Morning by morning new mercies I see
All I have needed Thy hand hath provided
Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord unto me!