Joyous Hearts is the SSB ministry to seniors that meets monthly for a devotional, fellowship, snacks (today was soups), reminders of days past and some singing. These are rich times of blessing. I just exited the January 2021 session very blessed and bring you this report.
First, Al Douglas reminded us of the challenge to be filled with the Spirit and thus living out the nine fruits found in Galatians 5:22-23 – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
Two were highlighted:
- “Goodness.” Al thinks this might be the most important for Jesus Himself declared: “Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God. (Matthew 10:18)
- “Self-control.” Al prefers to call this one “God-control” for when self is in control many wrong decisions and wrong actions ensue. Rather, he wants God to be in control at all times.
After the devotional, we took in a video singing of old hymns. Among them was the singing of “Blessed Assurance” by Fanny Crosby, the blind songwriter who continues to bless millions with the faith and love she had for our God.
As this was sung, I thought about us in the aftermath of 2020 and now in a very rough start to 2021. There are a host of things that are unsettling – but God! Remember that His work is our anchor:
Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine! O what a foretaste of glory divine!
Heir of salvation, purchase of God! Born of His Spirit, washed in His blood!
This is my story, this is my song – Praising my Savior all the day long!
Oh, what a future is ours all because He bought us, washed us, and made us heirs – GLORY!
The one singing this hymn paused to talk about January 12, 1981 when as a 19 year-old he came home to not find his mother. He ate and retired to the basement for a nap to be awakened by voices. The voice of his father calling his name sounded troubled. He went to his parents’ room to find his mother unconscious on the bed. She had suffered a brain aneurism and died later that day.
He talked of God’s grace being sufficient for in God’s grace he had not discovered his mother and how God kept his father from finding her already deceased but gave them a few hours of hope and prayer before God took her.
He told how he remembered that always after lunch his mother would retire to the little restroom off her bedroom to pray for her husband, her children, missionaries and others. When he had come home that day that fact had slipped past him so looking into her bedroom, he had concluded that she was out for lunch or on an errand.
He noted how God’s grace was sufficient. II Corinthians 12:8-9, Concerning this thing I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might depart from me. And He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.”
He found the goodness and strength of God more than adequate for the crisis in his life…
Perfect submission, all is at rest! I in my Savior am happy and blessed!
Watching and waiting, looking above! Filled with His goodness, lost in His love!
This is my story, this is my song – Praising my Savior all the day long!
Yes! All is at rest – I in my Savior – happy and blessed – looking above – filled with grace and lost in His love!
May Jesus be our story. May Jesus be our love. May His praise be ours all day long!
So for these days of turmoil in our world, may the words of Fanny based on the Word from God be a source of strength and hope.
a PK Musing 
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