A Tender Moment

I haven't spent a lot of time blogging this year. In fact, I even made this blog private for some time. This year has not been at all what I anticipated it would be. 2013 has definitely not been "My Year" as I had hoped. The biggest trial that I have faced this year, and probably ever in my life, was unexpectedly losing my older brother on Easter Sunday.

I've never had a reason to question my faith in God or testimony in the LDS Church. I am certainly not perfect, but for the most part, I have been a believer in God and my faith for my entire life. Losing my brother caused me to doubt my faith. I'm not proud to say that, but it's true. It wasn't that I questioned why God would take him, it was more a fear that I felt that what if the teachings of my Gospel were not true. What if, at death, it all ends? What if I never see my brother again? These thoughts caused me to feel tremendous fear and sadness and discouragement. My heart and spirit were broken, and I felt despair in a way that I have never felt it before.

It has just been recently, as I have been going through another trial/loss that perhaps I will talk about on another occasion, that I felt an overwhelming feeling of God's love for me. It is so great that I simply can not deny it. If God's love for me is real then the rest of it must be real too.

Tonight I had a tender moment that I'd like to share. If you regularly follow my blog then you know that I am studying the harp. On a trip to Lyon & Healy West in Salt Lake City, I purchased several books containing harp arrangements of LDS hymns and Children's songs. One of my favorite hymns is "Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing". This hymn is in one of my books, so I started learning it aside from my regular studies.  

So this past week I've been practicing the arrangement, and tonight I decided to learn all of the words so that as I practiced, I could sing along in my mind.  As I sung these words, I was incredibly touched. There are verses to this song that I am not sure I have ever heard before and in fact were not included in the 1950 LDS Hymnal. I cried as I sung these words and was not even sure I'd be able to finish singing the last verse, which I think is the most powerful of them all. With my brother's passing, this song has taken on new meaning to me.

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. 

O to grace how great a debtor

Daily I'm constrained to be!

Let Thy goodness, as 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. 

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 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.

I can not help but think of my dear brother when I read those last few verses. He had strayed from the LDS Church that he knew so well for some period of his life, but shortly before he passed, he was on his way back. He was embracing God and the LDS Church through a change of heart he described as more clear to him than anything he had ever experienced in his life.

The author of these lyrics is Robert Robinson, 1735-1790.  He was clearly not a member of my faith because his life preceded the life of the LDS Church. But in a strange way, this fact makes this song more special to me. The words of this song, or poem if that's how he wrote it, were heart-felt and inspired. And tonight, I feel their truth.