Sunday's Hymn

We sang this hymn in the worship service this morning.

Blessed Assurance

Blessèd assurance, Jesus is mine!
O what a foretaste of glory divine!
Heir of salvation, purchase of God,
Born of His Spirit, washed in His blood.

Refrain
This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Savior, all the day long;
This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Savior, all the day long.

Perfect submission, perfect delight,
Visions of rapture now burst on my sight;
Angels descending bring from above
Echoes of mercy, whispers of love.

I in my Savior am happy and blest,
Watching and waiting, looking above,
Filled with His goodness, lost in His love.

—Fanny Crosby

Via YouTube, you can hear this hymn sung by the St. Olaf Choir.

Other hymns, worship songs, sermons etc. posted today:

• The Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity at Magic Statistics
• Who Is This So Weak and Helpless at Hiraeth
• God, Be Merciful to Me at Field Stone Cottage
• Lord’s Day 33, 2008 at The Thirsty Theologian
• Glory to God, Whose Sovereign Grace at joythruChrist
• Shall We Gather at the River at Conjubilant with Song
• Holy Bible, Book Divine  at Whatever Things…
• Shine Thou Upon Us, Lord at The Happy Wonderer
• Your Weekly Dose of Spurgeon: Illegitimate Contextualization at Pyromaniacs
• All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name at Practicing Theology

Have you posted a hymn today and I missed it? Let me know by leaving a link in the comments or by emailing me at the address in the sidebar and I’ll add your post to the list.

Animal Stories

Lately, I’ve been overrun by animals. There are my own three—the golden retriever and two cats—and last week, there were three more.

There’s Ned, who has been with us for over a month now while his family travels. He’ll be going home on Thursday, and I’ll miss him. If I’d known that he weighed 120 lbs., wasn’t leash trained, and drooled, I might not have taken him in, but I’d have missed out on a whole lot of good fun.

Ned is half rottweiler and half golden retriever, with a 100% rottweiler build.  But his heart? Pure golden. He wakes up bouncy every morning—like Tigger, really: “Oh good! Another beautiful day! What will we do for fun today?” If I were to name his favorite activities, I’d say it’d be going for a walk—in places where he doesn’t need to be leashed, of course—and riding in the car.

Yesterday I opened the trunk of my car to put some more bags of recycling in when Ned came bounding across the yard,  jumping, all 120 lbs, into my trunk where he sat atop the heaps of bags of recycling stuff with a goofy grin on his face. He wanted, I’m guessing, to make sure he wasn’t left behind.

He’s nine years old, but he’s still a puppy. He does enthusiastically foolish things to entertain me almost every day. And he adores me, so I can’t help but love him right back.

And then there are the kittens. They showed up on Tuesday afternoon while I was having my new furnace installed. There were people in and out all day and two kittens bouncing around the yard. They seemed to have come from down the street in the direction of the dead end, but the families in the three houses down there were all gone on holidays. Wherever they came from, they didn’t go back home, but slept the whole night in the adirondack chair on the front porch. 

By Wednesday, we’d concluded they were litter left-overs dumped in the woods beside my house by a cruel owner. The sons begged me to feed them, but I refused.  I did not want to become the crazy cat-lady of Hillcrest. 

But by that night, I’d had pity on them and oldest son took the two, along with an old paint tray, an extra bag of litter and some canned food my persnickety cats won’t eat, to his house downtown.  There, they wreaked havoc for two days and kept him awake for two nights. A pair of kittens, he’s concluded, are totally cute and thoroughly evil.

Thankfully, the kitty-cats are now back with their rightful owners, the family three houses down, who returned home from a month-long holiday to find that the house-sitter had accidently let the children’s precious pets out and had been unable to find them anywhere. How the sitter could have missed those two chasing each other around our yard for a day and a half, I’ll never know, but I am very happy they’re back home with the children who love them.

Ned, I’ll miss. Those rascally kitties, not so much.

Gas Up: August 14

The gas at the little station down the hill is $1.399 per litre. When I checked last Thursday, it was $1.429, so the downward trend continues for yet another week. The big question is whether the price ever go back down to where things were before the prices began to climb.

Sorry, no photo this week. Oldest son has the camera and I forgot to ask him for it before he went to his softball game tonight. You’ve seen so many photos previously that I bet you can see the sign with $1.39.9 on it in your head anyway. And the little vintage gas pump is so much cuter anyway.

Karen tells us that the price in Monrovia, CA continues to go down:

Today (08/12) ARCO gas price here in Monrovia, CA is $3.97 for the unleaded.

It’s the same story from Dorothy, whose price went down 4¢ a gallon this week.

You? What’s your gas price story?

Update on Tuesday, August 19, 2008 at 8:19AM by rebecca

From Rosemary in Colorado:

I filled up with gas today—-at $3.53 a gallon. The price was actually $3.63/gal, but because I spend so much at the grocery store, I had a .10/gallon coupon. At least it’s getting better!

Update on Tuesday, August 19, 2008 at 4:50PM by rebecca

How’s this for up and down? The report from threegirldad in Kansas:

Last Wednesday: $3.43
Last Thursday: $3.59
Today: $3.49