Yesterday we gathered with friends from our same organization up in this region for a day of prayer and worship.  

My friend Roberta picked out an old hymn, and as I started to sing it my voice quivered and I couldn’t get the words out for a few stanzas.

Eric and I had chosen this to be sung in our wedding – it is perhaps my favorite hymn of all times.  It is also the first hymn that i learned as a young girl in Rhodesia.  I remember sitting around the dinner table and trying to sing it.  Yesterday I kept thinking of my Dad, and how much he loves this song.

And then we got to the verse:

He speaks, and listening to his voice,
	new life the dead receive;
	the mournful, broken hearts rejoice,
	the humble poor believe.

And I sang it loud for my Nozomi friend T.  She had come to two of us after work the day before and asked us to pray for her.  Our normally cheerful dear friend was at wit’s end with challenges in her life…. as a single mother, living with her sister’s family… her children and her sharing a room with some of her sister’s children.  She wants to move out, but has to bear all of these decisions on her own.  My heart hurt for her.

But she wants to trust in God.  We prayed together.  She has a Maker who can heal the broken hearted and can help the humble to believe.  Her faith was so beautiful.  

T. plans to continue to meet with us after work once a week to study God’s word and pray together.  New life is being born, and I, too, wish for a thousand tongues to sing my Great Redeemer’s praise.