A Prayer Unto the Lord

D&C 25:14

For my soul delighteth in the song of the heart; yea, the song of the righteous is a prayer unto me, and it shall be answered with a blessing upon their heads.

A little ways into Sacrament meeting today the 1st counselor, who was conducting, got up and changed the closing hymn from whatever it was to “Abide with Me!” (Hymn 166).  I thought, well, that’s cool - that’s one of my all time favorite hymns.  I like the music, the lyric and I enjoy singing it.  I think this happened during the sacrament.  So I opened the hymn book and looked through song as the sacrament continued.  As I continued thinking about it occurred to me that two of my all time favorite songs are supplications to the Lord. 

O Divine Redeemer

Ah! Turn me not away,
Receive me tho' unworthy;
Hear Thou my cry,
Behold, Lord, my distress!

Answer me from thy throne
Haste Thee, Lord to mine aid,
Thy pity shew in my deep anguish!
Let not the sword of vengeance smite me,
Though righteous thine anger,
O Lord! Shield me in danger, O regard me!
On Thee, Lord, alone will I call.

O Divine Redeemer!
I pray Thee, grant me pardon,
and remember not, remember not my sins!
Forgive me, O Divine Redeemer!
Night gathers round my soul;
Fearful, I cry to Thee;
Come to mine aid, O Lord!
Haste Thee, Lord, haste to help me!
Hear my cry! Save me Lord in Thy mercy;
Come and save me O Lord
Save, in the day of retribution,
From Death shield Thou me, O my God!
O Divine Redeemer, have mercy!
Help me, my Saviour!

Abide with Me!

Abide with me! fast falls the eventide;
The darkness deepens. Lord, with me abide!
When other helpers fail and comforts flee,
Help of the helpless, oh, abide with me!

Swift to its close ebbs out life's little day.
Earth's joys grow dim; its glories pass away.
Change and decay in all around I see;
O thou who changest not, abide with me!

I need thy presence ev'ry passing hour.
What but thy grace can foil the tempter's pow'r?
Who, like thyself, my guide and stay can be?
Thru cloud and sunshine, Lord, abide with me!

The hymn “Abide with Me!” has a scripture noted with it in our hymn book: John 15:4-12.

Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing. If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.

If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you. Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples. As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love. If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love. These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full. This is my commandment, that ye love one another, as I have loved you.

There’s a lot to be found in that passage, about glorifying the Father and the perfect love of the Saviour. But that’s another day.

More Ancient History

I was digging through some more old photos today and came across some from a summer afternoon in 1989, when the kids were playing in the sprinklers out front of the house we lived in at the time.

These were taken on my old SLR camera, a conventional camera as this pre-dates the digital era. It was a fun afternoon in June, the weather was nice, the sun was out so it was warm and the kids were having lots of fun and being cooperative. I was able to get some good photos. In fact, the kids were all feeling good enough to be hamming it up a bit.  I had the shutter speed set pretty fast so it froze the water droplets in the air. That looks cool.

At the time, Blaubeere, Erdbeere and Moosebeere were the only ones outside playing.  Heidlebeere was around but only a couple of years old so she wasn't outside playing in the water. Didn't like the sprinklers that much, though she eventually got over that. This was just before Stachelbeere was born.

It was a good day.  Lots of fun.  I like to remember those kinds of days.

A Good Day

 Yesterday we had a date day, I guess you could call it.  We ran off to temple. That was nice.  Its a bit of a drive for us so going is pretty much an all day thing but its worth it.  I have been trying to learn more about doing family history recently and had, at one point, hoped to be able to take our own names to do but that didn't work out for this trip.  Still, any day at the temple is a good day and this was no exception.

 After we finished at the temple we met Erdbeere and her little boy, Townsend and had dinner. That was fun.  The place we ate at had some sculptures out front that the kids could climb on and play on.  And they sure did.  We were there and there were several other families letting their kids play on them too. Townsend had fun telling us about the colors and pointing out the toes on each.  He's growing up so fun. I thought it would be fun to lift him up on one of the other animals they had there, a lion, but Townsend was content to just stand by them and point out their features.

We spend a little time before we ate and then we went inside.  This was a new restaurant to us, none of us had ever been there before.  But it turned out to be pretty yummy.  We've been thinking it would be fun to try some Thai food the last while so that's the kind of restaurant we picked. Parking was a bit of a challenge, we ended up having to walk a little ways but that was okay. We each got something different and then there was lots of trying each others' stuff.  Well, Brombeere and I had never been to a Thai restaurant before but Erdbeere was an old pro. She knew what she liked and she knew what Townsend liked. It was a hit.  And it was close enough to the temple that we were thinking that we might have to go there again next time we're in the neighborhood.

 When dinner was over we had to check out the sculptures one last time.  Then we said our goodbyes and headed for home.  It was a good day.  I'm glad Erdbeere and Townsend were free and could visit.  Our being there was kind of unexpected.  Turned out to be a bit of serendipity.  That was nice.

More Cookies

This must be our favorite past-time with grand-kids.  Or maybe we just like cookies! Yeah, that's the ticket - we like cookies.  The best kind are sugar cookies, followed closely by gingerbread.  I really like gingerbread, whether its gingerbread houses or just cookies. So yesterday, when Blaubeere brought her kids over we made both kinds! And frosted them!  Now that's near perfect.
So here we have three little kids, all willing to help, some more able than others.  The littlest, she likes to dump stuff in the bowl.  So one of the exciting moments came when we were adding some ingredients.  She grabbed the bottle of almond extract and started dumping the contents into the mixing bowl.  Grandma's got good reflexes and grabbed that bottle quicker than you can say, "Bob's your uncle." and stopped the flow but there was still a lot of extract in that bowl.  But Grandma is also ingenious and used a medicine dropper to suck the excess extract out.  Cookies saved, yeah for Grandma!

Remember the nursery rhyme, "Pat-a-Cake"?

Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker's man.

Bake me a cake as fast as you can;

Pat it and shape it and mark it with "B",

And bake it in the oven for baby and me.

And so we did. Each of the kids took turns with the roller (that was another interesting moment, when they bear down a bit hard on the roller and you end up with paper thin cookies!). And each took turns picking a cookie cutter and cutting our their shape of cookie.  And you know how after you pick up the cut cookie and put it on the cookie sheet there's bits and pieces of cookie dough still left where you rolled the dough out?  Well, another test of Grandma's reflexes was to see who could get those bits and pieces of dough first.  If Grandma got it we got to roll out another bunch to cut.  If the kids got it it disappeared into their mouths. Ah, such is working with little kids - part of the fun!

"I don't know how this happens!"

So after all the cookies that made it onto the cookie sheet had been baked and cooled we got to do the frosting.  That was fun, too.  Among the decorations we got out were some eyes. They were sold as Halloween decorations but who cares!  On they went.  Didn't take long before little sprinkles were all over the place, particularly some little faces.  What fun!

And, oddly enough, when it was all over and done there were actually some pretty nice looking cookies to show for it all!  It was a good time. A sure winner with little kids.