"HEAVEN CAME DOWN...

and Glory Filled My Soul."


When I was pondering the "Down" Word Carnival this morning, wondering what I could share, these lyrics to a hymn in my past jumped in. And I grinned again.

You see, when I came to the Lord April 15, 1966, I knew very few hymns, and the only ones I knew well were connected to the occasional Lutheran church attendance on my part, and it had been quite a while since I'd even done that. [Not complaining about Lutheran church people; they were good to me and planted lots of godly seed.]

When the Lord broke into my life, as I've shared before, I was one tough cookie. Hard-looking, hard acting. Scared some folks and they weren't sure they should step deeper into my life. Couldn't risk losing their own ground if I began a fight of some sort.

At this Baptist church, not overly populated, the choir director in her mid-30s... about 15 years older than I ... became my friend. Lorna was very much involved with me. And, consequently, I sang in the choir, which had only a few members... about a dozen, I suppose, most of the time.

In November, 7 months after my salvation, this was sung. And when we practiced, I smiled. Every time I sang it to myself during that week, my heart grinned. And then, on Sunday, I SANG it.

After the service, a teen a couple years younger than I, came up to me and said, intensely, "When you sang, you smiled."

In my usual cranky, sarcastic sounding voice I said, "I always smile." She shook her head and said, "No. Today, you really smiled."

And she was right. There were other hymns that had touched my heart in those previous months, had truly changed my every-day focus.

But this one burst forth in a way I'd never experienced. And rarely since then.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdwMzcbbN3Q

When I decided to share the song, I had a tough time on Youtube. I was amazed at the number of times this song had been added to it. As lacking in the number of people singing and the fancy environment and every word exactly right, I felt this is the one to post. The reason? It is being sung by people who resemble my Bhutanese families here in Omaha, ones who have a heart for the Lord that goes much deeper than the casual attitude so many of us just have in our hearts. As I said, it isn't fancy, but it's true.