Someone gave me an old hymnal the other day.  It was published in the 1940’s and looked as tired as I feel.  I collect old hymnals, why I don’t know; but for some reason I don’t want them to go into the trash.  They all mostly contain the same hymns, just not in the same order.  This one has childish pencil printing on the cover.  It seems to be intact with no pages missing.  The edges are thing and worn.

I thumbed through the old hymnal letting each song come into my mind.  Sometimes I recalled worship services where certain hymns were sung.  How many hands held this old book?  Did they really have to look at the words, or did they hold the hymns in their memory?  I remember my grandmother’s hands as they held a similar book, singing along with the congregation, praising God.  Her hands were gnarled and careworn.  What chores did she put off in order to assemble with her neighbors to worship the Lord?  I can still hear her singing.  …”O can we say we are ready, brother?  Ready for the soul’s bright home?  Say will he find you and me still watching, waiting, waiting when the Lord shall come?”  She, among others, passed on this love of worship and abundant life to me.

Our heritage is this abundant life, the gift of God.  May the Lord always find us trying to pass on this abundant life to future the generation.  It is with grateful appreciation that I write this to the generations who came before us, passing on the love of the knowledge and reverence for the worship and praise of the Lord.  May this abundant life flow from us to those we encounter daily.

“I am the door.  If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture.  The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy.  I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.”  John 10:9-10 NKJV