Decisions, decisions

I'm sure you're expecting glorious news that all my decisions have been made, and I'll stop talking about wedding planning-- BUT the reception site is still a mystery. I visited Rothchild, and it was nice, but I'm trying to find another place that is available to compare it to. Currently, every hotel (well, about the 15 that I've contacted) is either booked or not big enough to hold a large gathering. Boooo. The idea of an outside carnival is looking good right about now. I don't think people would enjoy July weather with formal wear on, so I'm trying to avoid outside sites as much as possible.

This morning I got on the idea of worship music for the ceremony because Casey was kind enough to provide an outline of how much music to include, and I heard a good song ("Beautiful" by Shawn McDonald) on Squatty's blog. This is a very difficult process for someone who loves modernized hymns to no end! I'm currently trying to find a copy of "O Love That Will Not Let Me Go" because I heard a Derek Webb & Sandra McCracken (I'm assuming it was her voice) version that's updated, but it's not anywhere for purchase online! I read the history of the hymn on the RUF music site and it seemed wayyy too pertinent to a wedding. Check it out:

History of Hymn

“O Love That Will Not Let Me Go” written on the evening of Matheson’s sister’s marriage. His whole family had went to the wedding and had left him alone. And he writes of something which had happened to him that caused immense mental anguish. There is a story of how years before, he had been engaged until his fiancé learned that he was going blind, and there was nothing the doctors could do, and she told him that she could not go through life with a blind man. He went blind while studying for the ministry, and his sister had been the one who had taken care of him all these years, but now she is gone. He had been a brilliant student, some say that if he hadn’t went blind he could have been the leader of the church of Scotland in his day. He had written a learned work on German theology and then wrote “The Growth of The Spirit of Christianity.” Louis Benson says this was a brilliant book but with some major mistakes in it. When some critics pointed out the mistakes and charged him with being an inaccurate student he was heartbroken. One of his friends wrote, “When he saw that for the purposes of scholarship his blindness was a fatal hindrance, he withdrew from the field – not without pangs, but finally.” So he turned to the pastoral ministry, and the Lord has richly blessed him, finally bringing him to a church where he regularly preached to over 1500 people each week. But he was only able to do this because of the care of his sister and now she was married and gone. Who will care for him, a blind man? Not only that, but his sister’s marriage brought fresh reminder of his own heartbreak, over his fiancé’s refusal to “go through life with a blind man.” It is the midst of this circumstance and intense sadness that the Lord gives him this hymn – written he says in 5 minutes! Looking back over his life, he once wrote that his was “an obstructed life, a circumscribed life… but a life of quenchless hopefulness, a life which has beaten persistently against the cage of circumstance, and which even at the time of abandoned work has said not “Good night” but “Good morning.” How could he maintain quenchless hopefulness in the midst of such circumstances and trials? His hymn gives us a clue. “I trace the rainbow in the rain, and feel the promise is not vain” The rainbow image is not for him “If the Lord gives you lemons make lemonade” but a picture of the Lord’s commitment! It is a picture of the battle bow that appears when the skies are darkening and threaten to open up and flood the world again in judgment. But then we see that the battle bow is turned not towards us – but toward the Lord Himself!

Any favorite hymns out there? "O Worship the King" is ranking up there, but I don't think a small band can rock out like Sunday morning worship can. Haha. I finally understand Chris Tomlin's version of the chorus after seeing the real words to the hymn:

O Worship the King

1. O worship the King,
all glorious above,
And gratefully sing
His power and His love;
Our Shield and Defender,
the Ancient of Days,
Pavilioned in splendor,
and girded with praise.

2. O tell of His might,
O sing of His grace,
Whose robe is the light,
Whose canopy space,
Whose chariots of wrath
the deep thunderclouds form,
And dark is His path
on the wings of the storm.

3. Thy bountiful care,
what tongue can recite?
It breathes in the air,
it shines in the light;
It streams from the hills,
it descends to the plain,
And sweetly distills
in the dew and the rain.

4. Frail children of dust,
and feeble as frail,
In Thee do we trust,
nor find Thee to fail;
Thy mercies how tender,
how firm to the end,
Our Maker, Defender,
Redeemer, and Friend.

Different, isn't it? Well, I'm going to get back to my animal ethics project (I'm doing it on the ethics of bull-fighting. Woot). ONE DAY UNTIL VISION QUEST! WOOOOOOO! Maybe I should be packing...?