I want a heart to pray,
To pray and never cease;
Never to murmur at my stay,
Or wish my sufferings less.
This blessing above all,
Always to pray I want;
On thee in each distress to call,
And never, never faint.
I want with all my heart,
Thy pleasure to fulfill,
To know myself, and what thou art,
And what’s thy perfect will.
I want a true regard,
A single, steady aim,
A pure desire that all may learn
To glorify thy name.
I want- I know not what;
I want my wants to see;
I want, - alas! what I want not,
When Christ is not with me?
#379, page 292
The Primitive Hymns
Spiritual Songs and Sacred Poems
By Benjamin Lloyd
1935
Words in part credited to:
Charles Wesley, 1742
http://www.hymntime.com/tch/htm/j/m/y/s/jmystren.htm
I, too, want what can actually never be: to experience a time when Christ is NOT with me. I am learning He is ever present and faithful. He cannot fail me, or abandon me, because he has claimed and redeemed me for His very own. I am His beloved and He is mine.
I am thankful for this book. It is a temporary, tattered reminder, a token heirloom of my Grannie Cleland’s collected songs of her faith in the LORD.
I am thankful to hold it in my hands, for knowing it was once held by hers. I read the words she read through many seasons of her life.
She was 16, soon to be 17, when she married. She became the wife of a carpenter who worked hard to keep food on the table during those depression years.
For a brief season of approximately 8 years, they moved as a young family from their home town of Nahunta, GA to live 30 miles away in Waycross, GA. His parents moved also to gain carpentry employment.
Eventually they would return to Nahunta to move into a home Grannie watched being built as she rode the bus to school as a young girl. It was there she lived until she fell and broke her femur, thus needing 24 hour care.
Until that occurred, she was a keeper of her home. She worked inside and outside. Her years were full of life that gave to others. She was a nurturer.
She bore six children, 4 of which survived. Her first baby, William Alfred Jr., was born still when she was soon to turn eighteen years of age. I cannot fathom such a grief at such a young age, except that I know she was surrounded by a loving and loyal family. She went on to birth four additional boys (which survived and lived into their middle to later years of life). The eldest of those four boys was my Dear Dad (left in the picture above). Her last born baby was a daughter, named Carol, but sadly, she was also born still. At that time, my Grannie was thirty-two years of age ðŸ˜. I wish I’d been so bold to ask her questions about how she overcame her sorrow during that season of her life.
I know little of how she came to saving faith. I only know her husband’s parents were instrumental in leading out to encourage her faith and church attendance. I am thankful to have some remembrance of her life disciplines and testimonies to “tell” of her regeneration. When we visited her, I remember seeing her Bible near her chair.
She exercised gratitude through trials of her faith, and she left me encouraging counsel to look to Christ in all seasons of my life.
This book cannot replace the loving presence and voice of her counsel and encouragement. I wish more than anything I could have her back for a day to be together and talk!
Grannie journaled, but not of deep matters. She wrote just enough to draw me closer to her heart.
I know she loved the LORD and sought Him by faith to overcome her loneliness and weakness. Her husband, my grandfather, passed away when she was 49 years old. She lived 42 years following his death, many of those years alone, but through some of those years her son and grandson lived with her. Her time was given to her family, whom she loved very much. She enjoyed their company, though living called some of them away from her simple existence. She filled her time with working in her yard. She planted and harvested her garden, enjoyed her flowers and pets. She cooked, sewed, washed, cleaned, … loved. All that she did to occupy her time, she did well!!
She enjoyed receiving visitors, especially her family. Those that lived beside and behind her surrounded her with just enough of their presence to realize she was capable of filling their schedules with projects to work on together.
One cousin in particular confessed he’d return home from a long day at work and hide from her so she wouldn’t give him more work to do! 😂 That tenderhearted cousin misses Grannie’s influence and presence as much as I do!
Such a life of multigenerational sharing is remarkable to me. Living at a distance from Grannie meant our visits were not as frequent and short. However, I’m thankful and awed the LORD blessed our family to live close enough we could visit as often as we could.
Grannie was not perfect. She was a sinner, just like me, and all of us. I am thankful she was a justified, praying, singing, sanctified sinner that loved her LORD, family, friends, pastor, and church body she was a part of.
I cherish her memory, and I treasure the hidden manner of her heart, her choices, the way she exercised her faith by reciting the same verse over and again. …
2 Thessalonians 5:18-
“In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.”
I pray it will one day be said of me that I lived a life set apart from the world to read, meditate, and live by God’s Living Word with a prayerful, thankful heart.
My Grannie passed away on June 23, 2001, just a few days before I would deliver our last child. We named him after our paternal grandmothers. Though she did not live to meet him, I cherish making that choice to give him her maiden name.
In loving memory of my Grannie Maude Alma Harris Cleland.
