Come Thou Fount

Last week, Lily started barking out back to alert me of a couple of men in a tiny motor boat behind our home. This is a fairly frequent sight as they often monitor our little lakes closely, so I quickly hustled her back inside waving to them in apology. Later that same evening, my family and I went running out back again at the strange sound of a loud motor followed by great splashing. This new fountain had miraculously appeared just yards from our house.

At first, it felt like a tremendous blessing, and we all started dancing around with joy at our great fortune. However, by the following morning we realized that unlike the pretty fountain at the other side of the lake which we can enjoy from a nice buffered distance, we can actually hear this fountain's motor. A motor that runs ALL DAY LONG and far into the evening... 

And yet, yesterday, moments after learning some devasting news about one of my most treasured friends on the planet - one of my spiritual Saints - this very same fountain blessed me beyond measure. I was curled up on the couch, so sad I was unable to cry, searching for prayers, searching for hope, searching for any type of understanding I could grasp when it started raining so hard, that I could no longer see or hear our new fountain for a few moments. And I missed it...

For after the rain turned on the tears I could not find for myself, my new little fountain gave them wings.

This story has more meaning when you understand that normally I cry at the drop of a hat - anytime, anywhere, at any mention of anything the least bit sentimental. That is just me. It always has been. I cry with friends and for friends and for strangers. Sometimes I cry for myself. Often I cry for no reason. Crying is what I do.

But yesterday my sadness was so deep that I guess I needed God to open the skies for me.

Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing

Come Thou Fount of every blessing

Tune my heart to sing Thy grace;
Streams of mercy, never ceasing,
Call for songs of loudest praise
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
Sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount! I'm fixed upon it,
Mount of God's unchanging love.

          Here I raise my Ebenezer
          Hither by Thy help I'm come;
          And I hope, by Thy good pleasure,
          Safely to arrive at home.
          Jesus sought me when a stranger,
          Wandering from the fold of God;
          He, to rescue me from danger,
          Interposed His precious blood.


          O to grace how great a debtor
          Daily I'm contrained to be!
          Let that grace now like a fetter,
          Bind my wandering heart to Thee.
          Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
          Prone to leave the God I love,
          Here's my heart, O take and seal it
          Seal it for Thy courts above.

(Words adapted from original hymn written by Robert Robinson circa 1757)