From the Pastor's Heart

And He Walks With Me As I was praying and pondering what to write for my weekly devotional, I started thinking about the hymn , In The Garden.   We didn’t get to sing it on Sunday!  Nor did we get to sing He Lives, Up From the Grave, Christ Arose, and others.  I am sure that you have a hymn that you particularly love and makes your celebration of the Resurrection complete.  I also know that In The Garden is at the top of the list for many. This hymn was written by C. Austin Miles.  When I was a kid and trying to learn to play the melodica, I used to sit for hours with the hymnal practicing the hymns.  I always liked to look at who composed the music and who wrote the lyrics.  I noticed that a lot of hymns were written by C. Austin Miles.  Mr. Miles is responsible for nearly 300 hymns that appear in hymnals.  Some of the ones we are familiar with are Love, Mercy, and Grace , and Dwelling in Beulah Land .  However, it is In The Garden for which he is best known.  As I research t

If you grew up reading the King James translation of the Bible this phrase is very familiar.   And it came to pass is used 396 times.   One of the first instances is in Genesis 8:6 “And it came to pass at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made” We’ve all heard the phrase; this too shall pass.   I saw an advertisement for a ring with the phrase in Hebrew engraved on the ring.   That piqued my interest.   There is a legend that I discovered.   “King Solomon was trying to humble his wisest servant, so he asked him to perform a seemingly impossible task: to find something that did not exist. He requested a magic ring — one that, if a sad man wore it, he would become happy and if a happy man wore it, he would become sad.” The story suggests that the servant could not find anything of such nature. So, King Solomon decided upon himself to go to a jeweler and design a ring with the inscription in Hebrew saying, “Gam ze ya’avor,” which m