With Respect

I don't want to dwell on my heartache and emotional trauma very much more.  I feel grieved out and my boss pulled a sermon out of nowhere today which convicted me to the depth of my soul.  I'm moving on soon, and I'm sure that the attitude of my blog entries will improve.


As I'm moving on, I thought I'd mention this.  I've been searching for song chords to play on my guitar and came across the wide variety of songs written by Bill and Gloria Gaither.  Now, I grew up with Gaither songs in our church hymnals, and so I knew already that they had written "He Touched Me" and "It Will Be Worth It All" and   "Let's Just Praise the Lord" and "The Family of God".  But what I didn't know was that they also wrote all those great Sandi Patti songs like "Unshakable Kingdom" and "Upon This Rock".  And even "Because He Lives".


I recently came across one of their songs entitled "I Will Serve Thee."  I wasn't immediately captured by the lyrics, but then I saw the chorus, which says:


Heartaches, broken pieces
Ruined lives are why You died on Calvary
Your touch was what I longed for
You have given life to me


Those lyrics caught me.  I then went back and looked at other lyrics from the Gaither songs.  Here are some of them:


From "He Touched Me"
Shackled by a heavy burden, 'Neath a load of guilt and shame. Then the hand of Jesus touched me, And now I am no longer the same. He touched me, Oh He touched me, 
And oh the joy that floods my soul! Something happened and now I know, He touched me and made me whole.


From "Because He Lives"
Because He lives, I can face tomorrow.
Because He lives, All fear is gone.
Because I know He holds the future,
And life is worth the living just because He lives.


Songs that I've known from childhood have come back to comfort me.  And thought the Gaithers will probably never read this, I want to thank them for the work they've done.  For their courage in admitting that the Christian life is not always flowers and lambs and sunshine.  And for reminding me that Jesus came not just to save me from my sin, but to heal my broken heart.  My questions remain unanswered, but the answers seem less important now than just the process of asking.  And I have peace in my soul, knowing that this world and its trials are passing, and that "It will be worth it all when we see Jesus".