Rebel to Redeemed…Sharing HIS Kind of Love
I was able to find very little about this song, Thank You Lord For your Many Blessings on Me, other than it was written and performed by Jeff and Sheri Easter. The message is so beautiful, I decided to share it anyway. It’s a great reminder to be thankful for our many blessings.
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“Jesus, Lover of My Soul” was written by the prolific hymn writer Charles Wesley. He wrote the hymn within months of his 1738 conversion and titled the piece “In Temptation”. It was first published as a poem in 1740. Not until nine years after Wesley’s death was a tune added to the poem. Yet, it has become one of his […]
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“Jesus Saves” is often known with its opening line “we have heard the joyful sound”. The hymn was written by Priscilla J. Owens. She was born on July 21, 1829 and lived in Baltimore, where she worked in the public-school sector. Most of her hymns were written for children’s services with many of her works appearing in the Methodist Protestant […]
Read more“There Is A Balm in Gilead” is a traditional spiritual. While the date of composition is unknown, the song dates back to at least the 19th Century. A version of the refrain can be found in Washington Glass’s 1854 hymn “The Sinner’s Cure”. A “balm in Gilead” is a reference from the Old Testament taken from Jeremiah 8:22.
Read more“All My Hope on God is Founded” began as the German hymn. The original words “Meine Hoffnung stehet feste”. Joachim Neander wrote the hymn around 1680. Neander was born in 1650 in Bremen (modern day Germany). He served as a German theologian and hymnwriter. He wrote over sixty hymns and is best known for the hymn Praise to the Lord, […]
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William Blake was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. In his epic collection Milton: A Poem in Two Books is a poem titled “And did those feet in ancienty time”. Various lines of the poem are drawn from either historical events or passages of scripture. Sir Hubert Parry composed the music to the poem in 1916. Today this is the […]
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“Who Shall Separate Us?” is an eight-part a cappella choir composition. It was written by James MacMillian and commissioned for the state funeral of Queen Elizabeth II sometime around 2011-2012 when the song was written. The commission is said to come as a surprise, but MacMillian is known as a “masterly composer of small-scale religious choral pieces”. MacMillian said he […]
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“O taste and see how gracious is the Lord” was composed for Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation in 1953. Ralph Vaughan Williams married his melody with the scripture found in Psalm 34. The hymn was inspired by Psalms 34:8 “O taste and see that the LORD is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in him.” (KJV) Williams was born in […]
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Blaenwern is a Welsh hymn. The song was composed by William Penfro Rowlands during the 1904-1905 Welsh revival. Rowlands was born on April 19, 1860. He was a Welsh schoolteacher, composer, and conductor of the Morriston United Choral Society. He died on October 22, 1937. The song was first published in the 1915 Cân a Moliant by Henry H. Jones. This […]
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My Soul, There is a Country was written by Sir Charles Hubert Hastings Parry. He was the 1st Baronet and an English composer, teacher and historian of music. He was born February 27, 1848. He is best known for his choral songs “Jerusalem” and anthem “I was Glad”. He died on October 7, 1918 from the Spanish flu. “In May […]
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The “Sussex Carol” is a popular Christmas Carol in Britain. Luke Wadding, a 17th Century Irish Bishop, first published the song in 1684. It is unknown whether he wrote the song himself or had recorded it from earlier coposers. The text and tune were discovered by Cecil Sharp and Ralph Vaughan Williams. The men wrote the song down as sung […]
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I have found two different stories for this hymn. The first states it is believed “The Virgin Mary Had a Baby Boy” was written Jamaican singer-songwriter Oswald Dunbar sometime in the early 1960s. Legend states he adapted the lyrics from an earlier Jamaican folk song “Livvy’s Song” to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. The text follows the story as […]
Read moreEnglish poet Christina Rosetti published a poem under the title “A Christmas Carol” in January 1872 issue of Scribner’s Monthly. Composer Gustav Holst composed a setting to her words in 1906. The new hymn appeared in The English Hymnal under the title “In the Bleak Midwinter”. In 1909, Harold Darke composed an anthem for the piece, which is widely performed […]
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God Be with You till We meet Again was written by Jeremiah E. Rankin around 1880. It is undated but he gave a copy to Sankey in 1882. Rankin was born on January 2, 1828 in Thornton, New Hampshire. He received his doctorate in 1869 and served as president of Howard University a few years. He wrote and published a […]
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“I Vow to Thee, My Country” is a British patriotic hymn. Sir Cecil Spring Rice wrote the poem “The City of God” or “The Two Fatherlands” in either 1908 or 1912. The poem described how a Christian owes his loyalties to both his homeland and the heavenly kingdom. In 1908, he was posted at the British Embassy in Stockholm. In […]
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Sleep, Dearie, Sleep was played at the end of Queen Elizabeth II funeral at Westminster Abbey. Her bagpiper played this beautiful lament. I’ve been unable to find any additional information about who wrote the song.
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The Lord’s My Shepherd is a hymn based on Psalm 23. It first appeared in the Scots Metrical Psalter in 1650 and is usually attributed to the English Puritan Francis Rous. The tune Crimond is generally credited to Jessie Seymour Irvine, daughter of a parish minister of the Church of Scotland during Queen Victoria’s reign. The hymn was a favorite […]
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This hymn was recently sung at the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II. Rev. John Ellerton wrote the hymn in 1870 to be included in A Liturgy for Missionary Meetings. Two different translations of the text are included in German official hymnals. The theme focusses on the worldwide fellowship of the church. It goes on to offer a continual prayer and […]
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O Love, How Deep, How Broad, How High was written by Thomas A Kempis. His father was a peasant, whilst his mother kept a dame’s school for the younger children of Kempen. At the age of 12, he became an inmate of the poor-scholars’ house which was connected with a “Brother-House”. He remained there for six years before being received […]
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At the Name of Jesus reminds us that one day every knee will bow and tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. The song was written by Caroline Marie Noel. She was born in Kent, England in 1817 to an Anglican clergyman and hymn writer. By her late teens she wrote poetry but then abandoned it for the next […]
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