Rebel to Redeemed…Sharing HIS Kind of Love
On Tuesday, I shared how this song had impacted my weight loss journey. I first heard this song several years ago in a church service. I was working my way through a very difficult time in my life. This song spoke to me and I realized I HAVE to sing this song. I remember sitting in my seat with tears […]
Read more
Have you wondered where I got my tag, “Sharing HIS Kind of Love” from? The phrase comes from the song by the same title. His Kind of Love was written by Marijohn Wilkin. For 15 years I was Daddy’s accompanists on the piano. This was a song we performed on a regular basis. After his death, I took the Easter […]
Read more
Many times it is difficult to see the path ahead. All we can do is take things one day at a time. The song “One Day at a Time” was written by Marijohn Wilkin when she was fifty-three years old. By this point she’d known considerable success as a songwriter of country music. However, she’d also suffered extreme heartache and […]
Read more
I first heard and loved this song more than 20 years ago when released. However, lately this song keeps returning in my life. As I transform with my weight loss and other areas of my life, I’m seeing the difference the touch of the Master’s Hand can make. So, how did the song originate? The song, sung by Wayne Watson, […]
Read more
The Old Rugged Cross is often requested during hymn sings. The message seems to be one that everyone can cling onto. Three different sites claim to be the home of this well loved hymn. The hymn was written by George Barnard, a minister ordained by the Methodist Episcopal Church. Rev. Bernard began his ministry in the Salvation Army. While going […]
Read more
How Firm A Foundation was published in 1787 by John Rippon. When it appeared in Rippon’s ‘A Selection of Hymns,’ it was signed simply “K”. All efforts to identify this mysterious “K”, have been fruitless; and the mystery remains to this day. Some reprints show the author was Kenne. Dr. Rippon’s musical director was R. Keene and it’s believed he […]
Read more
Frances Jane Crosby was born on March 24, 1820 in Brewster, New York. She is best known as Fanny. At the age of six weeks, Fanny caught a cold that caused inflammation in her eyes. Mustard poultices were applied to treat the inflammation, damaging her optic nerves and blinding her. Her father died the same year she was born and […]
Read more
To God Be the Glory was written by Fanny Crosby around 1875. She originally titled the hymn “Praise for Redemption.” William Doane composed the music to go with Fanny Crosby’s lyrics. The hymn first appeared in the Brightest and Best Hymnal, which was compiled by William Doane and Robert Lowry in 1875. The song was not much a big […]
Read more
Joy to the World is a paraphrase of the Psalm 98. Originally the Christmas Carol was titled “The Messiah’s Coming and Kingdom” and first appeared in Watt’s 1719 “Psalms of David Imitated in the Language of the New Testament” hymnal. The music is believed to be adapted from parts of Handel’s Messiah by Lowell Mason. “And heaven and nature sing” […]
Read more
O Come All Ye Faithful was originally written in Latin. No one is sure who the original text was written by. Many people have been given the credit, but most likely an order of monks wrote the text. The original text consisted of four Latin verses, which were translated and used in the hymn we now know today. The composer […]
Read more
Silent Night has become a favorite Christmas Carol around the world. The hymn was never meant to be the legend it’s become. Joseph Mohr was the assistant priest at the Church of St. Nicholas in the Tyrol Alps of Austria. Father Mohr and Franz Gruber, the village schoolmaster and church organist, were discussing the fact that they believed the perfect […]
Read more
I love to attend a performance of Handel’s Messiah each Christmas. So where did it begin? Actually, although the oratorio is most often performed at Christmas time, the premiere took place at Easter time. The oratorio was composed in 1741 by George Frideric Handel. An oratorio is a large musical composition for orchestra, choir and soloists. Charles Jennens compiled the scriptural […]
Read more
Christmas Shoes came out just a few months after Daddy died of cancer. The song and story really resonated with me and continues to touch me even years later. The story first appeared in the book, Chicken Soup for the Christian Soul. In the book Helga Schmidt tells the story of a young brother and sister trying to buy their […]
Read more
This is my mother’s favorite carol, so I wanted to learn more about the origin of the song for her. Noel is the French word for Christmas. The French word is from the Latin word natalis, meaning birthday. The song is a narrative of the birth of Christ. The First Nowell is a traditional classical English carol. Researchers believe the […]
Read more
This popular Christmas carol was originally thought to have been written by Martin Luther for his own children and later passed on to German mothers. That legend has since been disproven. The first two stanza’s of the song first appeared in the Little Children’s Book published in 1885 by the John Church Company in Philadelphia. In the hymnal compiled by […]
Read more
Come, Ye Thankful People, Come is a harvest hymn that was written in 1844. The song was written by Henry Alford. In the days when most people survived off of the land, they understood the importance of the harvest. There was an urgency to safely gather the harvest before the winter storms rolled in. The first stanza is written to […]
Read more
Have Thine Own Way, Lord was written by Adelaide A. Pollard. Born in 1862 Iowa, she had a gift for writing prose, poetry, hymns and even articles. Her birth name was Sarah, but she strongly disliked the name and changed it to Adelaide. She spent her life in ministry, teaching at schools, working with evangelist and serving in missions overseas. […]
Read more
Thomas Andrew Dorsey experienced tremendous loss and sadness when he received word that his wife and newborn son died. In August 1932, at the time of their death he was at a revival meeting in St. Louis, Missouri and notified of his loss by telegram. He was left deeply depressed. Dorsey grew up a preacher’s kid but turned away from […]
Read more
When the Roll Is Called Up Yonder was written by James Milton Black in 1893. The story goes that when the time came to take roll in his Sunday School class, a little girl was absent. He’d met the fourteen year old girl one day and she touched his heart. He noticed that she was poorly dressed and realized […]
Read more
The happy song, In the Sweet By and By, came from a moment of depression. Joseph Webster, a composer, was friends with Dr. Sandford Bennett. Joseph Webster was born in the east in 1819. As a young man he studied music with Lowell Mason. In his thirties, he moved west settling in Elkhorn, Wisconsin in 1857. He is said to […]
Read more