[This is back-dated...or back-timed so it will show up under Tuesday...]

We Praise You and Acknowledge You, O Lord is a most wonderful hymn.  I found a blog that has it being played in a service that you can use to hear the tune if you wish.  I was able to sing it last night with Pizza Man, his lovely bride, and his sister, today with Bettina, and this evening again with Pizza Man and his bride.

Dinner last night was truly amazing, laced with raucous laughter, falling out of chairs, and much Gospel.  While we did not end until 2:00 in the morning, which is a horrible time for parents of young children and owners of businesses, we talked and read scripture and sang hymns...after stuffing our faces.

Did you know that I somehow managed to live 42 years without bread pudding?  Oh, my, is Pizza Man's bride talented with a spatula!  Vee's concoction was most sublime, as was her dessert for my dinner tonight, but that comes later.

Last night, we never did get back to Rumikub, and we talked far too much about my struggles, but we also talked at length about what I have been learning about Lutheran doctrine and the Truth of God.  And we sang.  I had wanted so very much to sing that hymn on Sunday with brothers and sisters in Christ.  Doing so was better than I had imagined it to be.  Vee's immediate response was to ask if we could sing it again.  We did!

Given that we all enjoy gathering so much, not just for the tasty food and for the convivial company, but for the fellowship in the Word, we have to figure out a way to not stay up so late...to set boundaries.  I thought of a way and proffered to it Pizza Man, that we set an alarm for one-hour hour before our target departure time so we would have some closure time, but still get out the door.

Oh, how that did not work tonight!

This afternoon, Bettina visited with me via the Internet and Sprint.  She beat me handily at Scrabble and then we did the Responsive Reading 2 and the Litany, only this time we added readings from the Psalter (32), the Old Testament (Isaiah 41:10; 43:1-2), the New Testament (Romans 9), and the Gospel (Mark 1).  [Happy as a pig in a mud sty am I when I have lots of Scripture being read aloud!]  And we sang the hymn.

Tonight, I had dinner elsewhere, but struggled with the fact that it was more service than a visit, even with a game squeezed in.  It was not the short time, not at all.  It was that ...well...I supposed I should just leave it alone.  It is what it is.  I cannot change that not matter how much I might wish it otherwise.

Because I wanted the evening not to be an intrusion, I wanted to wash the dishes before I left and insisted that I do so.  Doing so, however, was excruciating.  I had already been standing up for the majority of the past four hours, so I moved a stool over to the sink and stuck one of my feet up on it to try to straighten out my lower back somewhat as I worked.  To concentrate on finishing and not crying, I spent the time praying for each member of the family.  However, my mind kept flitting back to that email I received last week--how hard it is for me to even think about it--how upset I was on Sunday, and how they both seemed to fit with how the dinner turned out.  So, while I was trying to keep from straying back to that which troubles me while I prayed, I worked to keep a bible verse in mind for each person.

I found praying that way interesting.  And I wondered if I would ever understand how Luther prayed the Lord's Prayer, working his way through each petition, or if I would always remain stuck at LC, Part III, 74.

On the way home, I stopped by Pizza Man's home because he wanted a piece of the sumptous carrot cake his lovely bride had baked from scratched--she even grated the carrots!  When I arrived, he took one look at my face and asked me inside.  We did talk a bit, and I received a giant dollop of encouragement and a wee bit of chastisement.  Then, much to my surprise, Vee declared that we needed to have devotions again.

Oh, my goodness!  I have been blessed to overflowing with devotions between Friday and Sunday night on the phone, last night after dinner, this afternoon, and this evening again.  I am giddy at the very thought!  I had been talking with them about the Book of Concord, giving them some history and a bit of background on some of the pieces.  Vee decided that we should read the Second Commandment right and then do the devotions like we did on the phone, with the Responsive Prayer 2 and the Litany.

Let me tell you, it was quite strange for me to sit with them and listen to my voice streaming through the computer speakers as I read aloud from the Large Catechism audio clip I had sent them.  Then, stranger still, we listened to the clip of my commentary on the commandment.  And yet I actually learned from hearing my own teaching.  How can that be?  Such is the power of the Living Word.

Given that it was so very late, we simply prayed the "Prayer on Wednesday" from the Treasury of Daily Prayer. And then went to sing just one hymn.  Vee already had the page turned to 941  We Praise You and Acknowledge You O God.  And we did sing that hymn...and sang it through several times working on two pesky intervals.  Then we sang another and another, under the guise of choosing hymns for our hymn-sing on Thursday, but we sang all the verses!  And hummed them and whistled them and sang them again.  Another whole hour passed by in a flash.  So late and yet such a blessing.

Yesterday, I received news that frightened me and reminded me how very alone I am, news that came when I was just home from that lonely trip to the ER struggling to breathe.  That situation has not changed, yet....  Well, last night Pizza Man's sister asked me just how it is that we fix our eyes upon Jesus (Hebrews 12:2).  I answered by backing up and telling her what I had come to think about the whole passage as I blogged earlier, about that it was Gospel, not Law.  But I did not really answer her question until after we sang We Praise You and Acknowledge You, O God.  I turned to her and touched my fingertips to the hymnal.  "For me," I said, "this is how I fix my eyes on Jesus."    

I practically floated the entire way home tonight.  Last night, Pizza Man's response to the hymn was that he was just so joyful after singing it.  He is decidedly not alone in that.  Such is the power of our Living God.

As I struggle through my hurt and confusion about the church, may the words of that hymn ring in my ears.  As I wrestle with my health and my job, may the words of that hymn fall from my lips.  As I battle my fears and the precariously unsafe situation before me this week, may the words of that hymn fill my heart.