Hymn: “No, Not One” – Johnson Oatman, Jr. (1856-1922)
Tune: HARPER MEMORIAL
None of us wants to be abandoned. It’s a fear common to all
of us.
When pledging a music fraternity in college, part of the
initiation involved being blindfolded and driven out to the middle of nowhere
in Jefferson County. Upon being dropped off well before dawn and instructed to
not take off the blindfold until I had counted to 100, I heard the car speeding
away. Almost immediately I ripped the blindfold off and watched as the red tail
lights faded down the hill and into the distance. Were they headed back to
school or were they trying to throw me off by heading the opposite direction? There
I stood with an envelope of instructions I could barely read because there wasn’t
a light anywhere in sight. I was abandoned and, quite frankly, terrified. Hours
later I found my way back to campus in time to get ready for my first class.
Isn’t it odd what some of these hymnlines bring to my mind?
Okay, I admit it: I AM odd!
As alone as I was, as forsaken as I felt – even then, I was
not by myself. Deserted by my ‘friends,’ but not unaccompanied because “there’s not an hour that he is not near us,
and there’s no night so dark but his love can cheer us.”
That was true for me in 1970. It is still true for me today.
How about you?
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