Words of
Encouragement & Hope
Submitted by Karen Blessing
When asked if I would write Words of Encouragement for November or December, I told Carolyn I needed to think about it. We have had so many Words of Encouragement from some very talented people.
I thought about what has given me encouragement in my life. There are many scriptures, but I also turn to hymns. Here are three that have provided hope in different moments in my life.
I have been told twice I wouldn’t live: once when I was ten years old and suffered third degree burns over my back and arms. The other time, when I was in college and had the Hong Kong flu. With both of these I had a fever of 105 degrees.
Once, I was told I would never work again after a back injury when I was in my mid-twenties. I have been through the death of mothers, fathers, grandparents, 3 brothers and the life-threatening illness of my daughter.
Thus, this verse of Amazing Grace has often lifted me up:
Through many dangers, toils and snares
I have already come.
'Tis Grace has brought me safe thus far
And grace will lead me home.
As I deal with the pandemic, racial inequality, our country’s division and the endless election campaigning, I turned to the promise in How Firm a Foundation:
The soul that on Jesus still leans for repose,
I will not, I will not desert to its foes;
That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake,
I’ll never, no never, no never forsake.
Finally, for the ways God watches over me daily and those he has given me, I sing to myself this verse from The Love of God:
Could we with ink the oceans fill,
And were the skies of parchment made,
Were every stalk on earth a quill,
And every man a scribe by trade;
To write the love of God above
Would drain the oceans dry;
Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
Though stretched from sky to sky.
Karen Blessing
