Favorites Friday

I am a hymns junkie. I confess, I confess!

I was privileged to grow up in an home that treasured the idea of heritage and legacy. We knew where in Ireland our ancestors hailed from. We heard stories of my great-grandfather carving out a life for his new wife and family after they left Sicily. We knew about our family's part in the history of the nation. For instance, there is a family legend (never totally proven, but it makes a great story!) that my grandfather used to play checkers with the neighborhood kids on Harriet Tubman's front porch in Auburn, NY. HARRIET TUBMAN!

So it naturally followed that when my Dad got saved and plugged in to his local church, he became very interested in church history and studying his newly discovered roots. I'm a lot like my Dad in that way. I love the old hymns of the church - I can rarely make it through one without getting totally choked up over the idea that this faith is so much bigger than me. That I am just a little piece of a huge picture that God's been painting since the beginning of time. That this love story of HIS has been running through generations and generations and I GET to be a part of it. I GET to be a part, no matter how small, in the race that has been running since My Father breathed life into this planet. These hymns remind me all at once of how small I am, how great HE is, and how much HE loves me. They tell me where I fit in this grand plan of HIS. And they make me proud to be part of a Kingdom that overcomes darkness and evil, as it has been doing for hundreds and thousands of years.

My Five Favorite Hymns

• How Great Thou Art, words & music by Carl J. Boberg & R.J. Hughes
• Great Is Thy Faithfulness, words by Thomas O. Chisholm & music by William M. Runyan
• Power In The Blood, words & music by Lewis E. Jones
• O For A Thousand Tongues To Sing, words by Charles Wesley & music by Carl G. Glaser
• O Come, O Come Emmanuel, compilation of various antiphons (hymns, chants and verses from a traditional Catholic Latin mass) translated by John M. Neale, arranged by Thomas Helmore

I could probably spend every Friday, posting my favorite hymns from various time periods of history. Or favorites from Fanny Crosby, then Charles Wesley, then Martin Luther. Or telling you the stories that prompted these rich and powerful worship songs. But today, this is my list. I may visit this topic again in the future. After all, we have a rich, long and victorious history and these hymns of ours tell a magnificent story. It's worthy of several visits!

What are your favorites? What do they speak to you?