I Need Thee Every Hour

Often, when I feel lost in my day I think of the great old hymn, "I Need Thee Every Hour." I have sung it to my babies at night when they were fighting sleep and I wanted to sleep. I have cried and sung it at the same time when I was fighting depression. I have prayed it when I just didn't know what else to pray. It has always brought comfort to me.

  Here is the story of Annie Hawks and the great hymn of worship that she wrote.

Annie Hawks wrote:

One day as a young wife and mo­ther of 37 years of age, I was bu­sy with my reg­u­lar house­hold tasks. Sud­den­ly, I be­came so filled with the sense of near­ness to the Mast­er that, won­der­ing how one could live with­out Him, ei­ther in joy or pain, these words, “I Need Thee Ev­e­ry Hour,” were ush­ered in­to my mind, the thought at once tak­ing full pos­sess­ion of me.

After writ­ing the lyr­ics, Hawks gave them to her pas­tor, Ro­bert Low­ry, who add­ed the tune and re­frain. The hymn was first pub­lished at the Na­tion­al Bap­tist Sun­day School Con­ven­tion in Cin­cin­na­ti, Ohio, in 1872. Some years lat­er, af­ter the death of her hus­band, Hawks wrote:

I did not un­der­stand at first why this hymn had touched the great throb­bing heart of hu­man­i­ty. It was not un­til long af­ter, when the sha­dow fell over my way, the sha­dow of a great loss, that I un­der­stood some­thing of the com­fort­ing pow­er in the words which I had been per­mit­ted to give out to others in my hour of sweet se­ren­i­ty and peace.

I NEED THEE EVERY HOUR

I need Thee every hour, most gracious Lord;
No tender voice like Thine can peace afford.

Refrain

I need Thee, O I need Thee;
Every hour I need Thee;
O bless me now, my Savior,
I come to Thee.

I need Thee every hour, stay Thou nearby;
Temptations lose their power when Thou art nigh.

Refrain

I need Thee every hour, in joy or pain;
Come quickly and abide, or life is in vain.

Refrain

I need Thee every hour; teach me Thy will;
And Thy rich promises in me fulfill.

Refrain

I need Thee every hour, most Holy One;
O make me Thine indeed, Thou blessèd Son.

Refrain

Decreasing for His Purpose

For years I have enjoyed reading the devotional written by Oswald Chambers titled, My Utmost for His Highest.  Below is a devotional that can be found on this website.

Decreasing for His Purpose

If you become a necessity to someone else’s life, you are out of God’s will. As a servant, your primary responsibility is to be a "friend of the bridegroom" (John 3:29  ). When you see a person who is close to grasping the claims of Jesus Christ, you know that your influence has been used in the right direction. And when you begin to see that person in the middle of a difficult and painful struggle, don’t try to prevent it, but pray that his difficulty will grow even ten times stronger, until no power on earth or in hell could hold him away from Jesus Christ. Over and over again, we try to be amateur providences in someone’s life. We are indeed amateurs, coming in and actually preventing God’s will and saying, "This person should not have to experience this difficulty." Instead of being friends of the Bridegroom, our sympathy gets in the way. One day that person will say to us, "You are a thief; you stole my desire to follow Jesus, and because of you I lost sight of Him."
Beware of rejoicing with someone over the wrong thing, but always look to rejoice over the right thing. ". . . the friend of the bridegroom . . . rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom’s voice. Therefore this joy of mine is fulfilled. He must increase, but I must decrease" ( John 3:29-30  ). This was spoken with joy, not with sadness-at last they were to see the Bridegroom! And John said this was his joy. It represents a stepping aside, an absolute removal of the servant, never to be thought of again.
Listen intently with your entire being until you hear the Bridegroom’s voice in the life of another person. And never give any thought to what devastation, difficulties, or sickness it will bring. Just rejoice with godly excitement that His voice has been heard. You may often have to watch Jesus Christ wreck a life before He saves it (see Matthew 10:34  ).

For Oswald Chamber's complete library, click here

Review: Prelude to a Blog

Blogging has taken the internet by storm, growing to be the most popular way to share your convictions, stories or family updates.  I began blogging about our family in 2005 and it has come a long way since then.  Now you see people of all ages and types blogging about just about anything.

In a Prelude to a Blog, SisterLisa, of the blog, HomeSpun Life, explains to parents how to help their children get off to a good and safe start in the world of blogging.  She gives very detailed and careful instructions as how to start a blog.

I found that this was not just helpful in helping my children start a blog, but also for me as a blogger.  Her instructions were clear, precise and very informative. I learned a lot about blogging from reading her book.

This book is very practical and helpful for the new blogger who is wanting to take their blog to the next level. She has screen shots included that help in explaining in creating links.

She concludes her book with a pledge to "Blog with Grace". 

I highly recommend that you purchase her eBook, Prelude to a Blog.  She has it available as a download on her blog, HomeSpun Life  for $6.95.

5 Minute Chocolate Cake - better recipe

I received an email this morning from a fellow chocolate addict.  It was the recipe for a 5 minute chocolate cake that you cook in a coffee mug in your microwave!  Oh my goodness!  So, I had to share it with you.  I also found a mug you could buy with the recipe on it!  This obviously is not a new thing.

So here we go!

The recipe is easy.

Ingredients:
  4tablespoons flour
4 tablespoons sugar
1 egg
2 Tablespoons baking cocoa
A pinch of salt
  3tablespoons milk
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 Tablespoon oil
1/2 cup chocolate chips (optional, but not really)
Microwave safe cup

Spray your cup with cooking spray, just enough to coat the cup. In a bowl, mix together all your ingredients and stir well. Now pour this batter into your cup.

 

 

Put the cup in the microwave and cook it on full power for 3 minutes. Depending on the power of your microwave, and your altitude (go figure) you may have to cook the cake longer. Only cook in additional 15 second intervals, because an overcooked cake is no good, and it's even worse because you're microwaving it. 

Your cake should be nice & fluffy.  Now you are ready to serve it.  Here are a few idea's I found that you can do with your cake.

   

Sprinkle some powder sugar on the top.

Top with some cherry or strawberry pie filling. 

 I also think that adding some chocolate syrup on top would make is extra chocolaty!  Yum!

This would make a great gift.  Take all of the dry ingredients measured out and put them into a food safe bag.  Print out on a card the directions with a list of the remainder of ingredients needed (egg,milk, vanilla extract & oil) .  Attach the card to a ribbon and tie around the top of the baggie.  Place the baggie in the coffee mug.

There ya go!  An inexpensive, yet really cool gift for someone.