Family Worship

I don't remember exactly when we started having family worship with Ella every night, but I'm pretty sure we did it for the whole of 2010.  "Family time," as we call it, has been really fun lately.  We've been going through a great book KJ's brother and sister-in-law gave to us for Christmas, The Church History ABCs.  It introduces children to people who were important to church history in a fun way and has really great illustrations.  We've been reading two letters a night and are really sad about it coming to an end.  Ella has shown off her impressive memory skills and can tell you that Anne Bradstreet and John Donne wrote poetry, and she especially loves the illustration for John Knox's page:  "Knox, Knox, who's there?"  That is now her favorite joke.  James ripped out Zwingli's page; I'm not sure what kind of statement he was making in doing that.  


Tonight we read about John and Charles Wesley and learned that they wrote over 7,000 hymns.  That caused us to look through The Baptist Hymnal to see which ones were there.  Ella had so much fun looking through the hymnal.  Our search brought us in the way of William Cowper's wonderful poem, God Moves in a Mysterious Way, and we ended the night singing it.  I couldn't help but want to write the words down here for those who haven't read it.  And even if you have it's so good to read again (and again and again).

God moves in a mysterious way

His wonders to perform;

He plants His footsteps in the sea

and rides upon the storm.

You fearful saints, fresh courage take;

the clouds you so much dread

are big with mercy, and shall break 

in blessings on your head.

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,

but trust Him for His grace;

Behind a frowning providence

He hides a smiling face.

Blind unbelief is sure to err

and scan His work in vain;

God is His own interpreter,

and He will make it plain.