How Sweet and Aweful is the Place

My friend Dave shared this hymn by Isaac Watts with me last night. I share with you. :)

How sweet and awesome is this place
[originally How sweet and aweful is the place]
With Christ within the doors,
While everlasting love displays
The choicest of her stores!

Here every bowel of our God
With soft compassion rolls;
Here peace and pardon bought with blood
Is food for dying souls.

While all our hearts and all our songs
Join to admire the feast,
Each of us cry, with thankful tongues,
“Lord, why was I a guest?

“Why was I made to hear Thy voice,
And enter while there’s room,
When thousands make a wretched choice,
And rather starve than come?”

’Twas the same love that spread the feast
That sweetly drew us in;
Else we had still refused to taste,
And perished in our sin.

Pity the nations, O our God!
Constrain the earth to come;
Send Thy victorious Word abroad,
And bring the strangers home.

We long to see Thy churches full,
That all the chosen race
May with one voice, and heart and soul,
Sing Thy redeeming grace.

Amen! Here is a link to the titles (and quite a few texts) of 495 of the hymns Isaac Watts wrote in his lifetime. Even simply reading the titles is a blessing.

Week Two of CMA training is complete! Four exams down! Next week is our midterm for this first "mod" (every five weeks we begin two new courses). The studying is intense, but I love what I'm learning, and I very much like seeing A's at the top of my tests. We've been practicing doing patient interviews and taking vital signs this week in clinical, which has been a lot of fun - I look forward to doing it "for real" in the coming months, though I'm not sure what setting I will work in.

In a couple of hours I will go to visit my mom at her apartment for the first time. If you are reading this then, pray for us, please. I'm not sure what to expect from her or myself, really. I will listen to the Spirit. Father, may I open my mouth with wisdom; may the teaching of kindness be on my tongue. Tenderize my heart, I pray, and love her through me.

This morning walking from the parking lot to the school building (a couple blocks away) I crossed the street and caught eyes with a young man stepping out of his car. He was a senior in high school when I was a freshman, and I recognized him almost right away. He smiled and I smiled back tilting my head sideways as I do when I am intrigued or questioning and said, "Matt?" And he looked confused for a second and then smiled again, a little one, and said, "How are ya?" I assumed by the first smile that he recognized me, but guessing from the second, confused one, I don't think he did. Anyway, I didn't have time to stop and chat. I'm not sure why I'm blogging about it even, except that it's always a bit strange seeing someone who was once daily in your life, and then hasn't been thought of for years. He could be a completely different person from when I last "knew" him - he could be a new creation. hm.

Well, I have an hour and a half before I meet my mom. yes! I can read my Bible and write a letter to my Lord. I love doing that.

I hope you are well, reader. I'm signing off.

"He who formerly persecuted us now preaches the faith which he once tried to destroy."

Galatians 1:23

This is the power of God's mercy: to love a sinner who hates Him and give him such grace that after nailing Jesus Christ to the cross, mocking His Lordship, stabbing His side, and scorning His Death, the very blood from those wounds he inflicted would be the blood that cleansed him of all guilt.

Such a man was I.

How deep the Father's love for us,

How vast beyond all measure;

That He should give His only Son,

To make a wretch His treasure.

How great the pain of searing loss,

The Father turns His face away,

As wounds which mar the Chosen One,

Bring many sons to glory.

Behold the Man upon a cross,

My sin upon His shoulders;

Ashamed, I hear my mocking voice,

Call out among the scoffers.

It was my sin that held Him there,

Until it was accomplished;

His dying breath has brought me life!

I know that it is finished.

I will not boast in anything,

No gifts, no power, no wisdom,

But I will boast in Jesus Christ:

His death and resurrection.

Why should I gain from His reward?

I cannot give an answer,

But this I know with all my heart:

His wounds have paid my ransom.

Game on!

If there are any Youth Groupies reading this: I love you guys! Man, we have so much fun. Last night we played hockey -

some Amandahistory:

when I was younger I got so intimidated by sports of any kind. In school I hated gym class because there were always those guys who were super athletes and played competitively and didn't really care that it crushed your little girl heart to be made fun of for having no coordination, or for shooting and always missing. :) I mean, I was good at some things (like the gymnastics segment... ok, that's it, really).

My parents and brother worked on teaching me to play catch a bit later. My mom recently admitted that my inability bewildered her... and that it wasn't until my dad made me really angry that I threw the ball at him with accuracy and enough speed for it to reach him. Then I saw that I could indeed throw a baseball, and Heath and I played catch regularly, seeing how long we could go without dropping it.

Oh! This was fun: Dad brought home inner tubes from Truck tires, and Heath would stand on one so that I'd throw the ball way high, and he'd bounce up to catch it.

But anyway, it's so fun to play sports-type games with the Youth Group because I no longer care that my technique isn't the greatest (or anywhere near) - and because the Groupies are so good at playing together. No one is excluded or put down (there's definite joshing around, but it's in love - and everyone knows it). They cheer each other on and challenge each other and it's just an awesome, fun time of being brothers and sisters!

Moved, settling, beginning

2006 began a new year (to state the obvious) and a bit of a new course in my life. The next stone in my pathway has been laid in front of the one I'm on, and I'm right at that point of transferring weight from old to new. I've learned (the less-easy way) not to try and place my own stones, marking out the path several steps ahead, because inevitably just as I've announced where I'll be leaping to after this and then that and then such... God says, "Um, no you won't, Amanda. You're staying right where you are until I place the next stone, and then you'll go there."

So for the past while, since things have been up in the air in different areas and ways, I've been asked "What are you going to do? What's your plan?" etc., and I've said, "I don't know, yet. I'm waiting." Which interestingly isn't always a welcome response. Somehow giving a self-made answer that will likely not turn out appeases the multitude more than an I don't know right now, but when God makes a way, I'll do that. Thankfully, appeasing the multitudes is not a driving purpose for my life, and there is SO much blessing in waiting to follow the Lord, and being taken where I wouldn't have believed if I'd been told. ;)

I'm now living with a family from church. It's been three years since I lived with all believers everyday - I'd forgotten how truly good it is to simply be accepted as who I am in Christ, without question. To have scripture hanging on the walls and bookshelves with godly instruction; for prayer to be expected as we sit down together for dinner; to have friends be welcome visitors whom the family wants to know... what a relieving home culture.

This afternoon I'll attend orientation for the Medical Assistant training program that begins on Monday. In nine months I will be a certified M.A. But that's the next stone - for the moment I'm beginning training. :) The school schedule fits quite perfectly with my deli schedule - the closing shift at work begins half an hour after I get out of class, and the store is only a short drive away. I have Fridays off from both work and school so I can continue meeting with the Ladies' Bible study and the Kids' Club and Youth Group at night. And finally, Sunday will be for the Lord and resting. I so look forward to that.

When God places the next stone and says, "This is next, my child. It is good," then I'll let you know where I'm headed. For now I stand content on this one, knowing that it, indeed, is good.

I hope you all enter the new year ready and resolved to not waste it; to walk with Christ as the blazing focal point, leading you in and to His glory. May He bless you and keep you: Praise God! For His name's sake, He will!:)