Trials, Tears and Triumphs

My family parentage is Dutch.

My dad came over on a boat, my mom I think on a plane (can't recall for sure).  Dad was a child, mom an adult.

 My hubby's mom came over a boat.  She came as a child with her family.

Working was a part of a their lives since they were young.  Life was hard.

So when a friend of mine told me she wrote a book about her early life coming to Canada and the various things they want through.   How God's grace was shown in her life I asked if I could please read it and if I liked it, could I put it on my blog.

She ever so graciously gave me a copy.  :)

I know I've reviewed this book before, but I had a quiet snowed-in Sunday afternoon and thought I'd read it again.  :)   AND I can't find the old review so there yah go.

27 chapters.  Leading from coming over on the boat through to life as a teen and then as a married woman, whose husband became a pastor.   Through childhood troubles, the joys and sorrows of being strangers in a new land, wild acting horses, not being able to speak and through it all.. the grace of God manifest throughout.

135 pages of immigrant history and seeing God in action.   To see a person healed when she needed surgery to remove polyps around her throat preventing speech.  The surprise of the everyone involved in the case.

It's a good read that helped me to understand some of what my heritage, some of what my people went through in their hopes of a better life.   It was good to see faith in action and the promises of God seen in real life.  

If you are interested in learning more about where to get this book, let me know.  I will put you in contact with Greta Zwaan the author.   Selling for about $12 the last I heard.

Hymn Study: God Of our Fathers

Here's an hymn that is oft sung in our church.   It is a hymn written to help celebrate a national holiday but speaks much to God's care for his people and our thankfulness to him for all he leads us through.

 God of our fathers, whose almighty hand
Leads forth in beauty all the starry band
Of shining worlds in splendor through the skies
Our grateful songs before Thy throne arise.

Thy love divine hath led us in the past,
In this free land by Thee our lot is cast,
Be Thou our ruler, guardian, guide and stay,
Thy Word our law, Thy paths our chosen way.

From war’s alarms, from deadly pestilence,
Be Thy strong arm our ever sure defense;
Thy true religion in our hearts increase,
Thy bounteous goodness nourish us in peace.

Refresh Thy people on their toilsome way,
Lead us from night to never ending day;
Fill all our lives with love and grace divine,
And glory, laud, and praise be ever Thine.

This hymn was written by Daniel C. Roberts and put to music by George William Warren.

The history to this hymn:

This hymn is a 19th century hymn written to commemorate the 100th year celebration of the  United States Declaration of Independence in 1876.  At that time Roberts was the rector in a small town in Vermont and he wrote it to help his town celebrate Independence Day.  At that time it was sung to the tune "Russian Hymn". 

Later he was invited to submit his hymn for inclusion in Episcopal Church hymnal on which Mr. Warren was a committee member.   He was the organist for the celebrations of the 100 years since adopting the Constitution.  The committee wanted to use the song for their celebrations but didn't want to use a tune called "Russian hymn" so Mr. Warren wrote a new tune called "National Hymn".

Ever since that 100 year celebration this hymn has become widely known and is included in many hymnals.

Scripture associated with this hymn is Psalm 46:7 where we read
The Lord of hosts is with us;
The God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah

Sources:
Lectionary.org.
CyberHymnal.
Center for Church Music.

King of Tyre, lamented, destroyed

Last time we met, we lamented the Prince of Tyre due to his need to see that he was not God.  It's a  important lesson to learn. 

Today we lament the King of Tyre. Today's reading is from Ezekiel 28:11-19

First we are told who the King is, who the king was MEANT to be.   The king was meant to be: 

• the signet of perfection
• full of wisdom
• perfect in beauty
• covered with a variety of precious jewels
• an anointed guardian cherub
• blameless in his ways.

 “You were the signet of perfection,
    full of wisdom and perfect in beauty.
¹³ You were in Eden, the garden of God;
    every precious stone was your covering,
sardius, topaz, and diamond,
    beryl, onyx, and jasper,
sapphire, emerald, and carbuncle;
    and crafted in gold were your settings
    and your engravings.
On the day that you were created
    they were prepared.
¹⁴ You were an anointed guardian cherub.
    I placed you; you were on the holy mountain of God;
    in the midst of the stones of fire you walked.
¹⁵ You were blameless in your ways
    from the day you were created,

BUT THEN ...unrighteousness was found in him. 
So much trade, the abundance of it changed him (or at least that's what I am implying from text).
Violence was part of that trade.   So violence became a part of the King of Tyre. 
The King sinned.
So God took action: 

• casting him down from his holy mountain
• destroying the guardian cherub

The king has corrupted his wisdom for the sake of spendor.   His beauty and riches were too important to him..

So the Lord continued to take action, casting the King down, exposing him before other kings.

This king who had everything and was meant to be so much more than what he was, has now had fire brought into his midst.   A fire that consumed him, so that all who caught a glimpse were dismayed, appalled actually.  The King of Tyre is God and that's the end of him forever.

 

¹⁶ In the abundance of your trade
    you were filled with violence in your midst, and you sinned;
so I cast you as a profane thing from the mountain of God,
    and I destroyed you, O guardian cherub,
    from the midst of the stones of fire.
¹⁷ Your heart was proud because of your beauty;
    you corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor.
I cast you to the ground;
    I exposed you before kings,
    to feast their eyes on you.
¹⁸ By the multitude of your iniquities,
    in the unrighteousness of your trade
    you profaned your sanctuaries;
so I brought fire out from your midst;
    it consumed you,
and I turned you to ashes on the earth
    in the sight of all who saw you.
¹⁹ All who know you among the peoples
    are appalled at you;
you have come to a dreadful end    and shall be no more forever.”

It's so easy you know... to get caught up in the things you have and to forget what you are supposed to be doing.   The King of Tyre had a heady responsibility.  God set him in place to be a shining light, and the King of Tyre (to me it seems) got distracted by the costs of doing business and let himself get caught up in it.   His name in essence became violence.

I'm imaging (hoping actually) that the change was gradual, that he just didn't see what was happening until he was immersed it in.   BUT a part of my brain niggles that he discovered this way of doing business and leaped right into action.

Either way... the position that God had placed in him, the position he was to have filled became dreadfully sullied, so God needed to remove him.   God showed the world what he had become.

So be careful.  Watch what he do and how you act.  God sees it.