Come, Emmanuel!!!!!!

The kids and I sing hymns every day as part of our Bible study.  I have started our own little hymn collection.  I go through a hymn book we have, find the songs I know, type them up, print them out, and voila!  We are up to 90 hymns so far.  I never knew that I had picked up on so many hymns growing up.  I was a pastor's daughter and all, but I was not interested in church when I was growing up.  My dad pastored churches that were small enough to not have much of a youth group, but even without that, I was my own bad influence.  ;-)  I usually slept through church.  Isn't that awful?????  To this day, I can honestly say that I don't remember one thing my Dad preached on, God bless him.  But somehow, here I am, by the GRACE of God, teaching my kids hymns and reading the Bible every day with a glad heart.  Here is a link if you want to print out the 90 hymns we have so far. 

ANYWAY.....I'm pretty methodical in how we sing the hymns.  I know it's easy to get hung up on our favorites, so we will sometimes start at the front of the folder, singing three a day until we get to the end, then turn around and go back the other way.  Sometimes to make it extra, EXTRA exciting, we will sing just the odd numbered hymns, then the EVEN numbered hymns.  As you can tell, I work hard to make it a thrill.  ;-) 

But on Fridays I shake it up even more and we have "All Request Fridays" when the kids get to pick a special song they want to sing.  It's funny.  They all usually pick a Christmas song.  I guess there's just something extra special about that time of year.  The other day, Second Son picked "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel".  We have sung that song quite a bit, but it seemed to open up to me for the first time that day.  I think that this song should not just be sung at Christmas, but all through the year.  It is a wonderful prayer that I found myself begging God to answer ASAP as we were singing the song.

O come, O come, Emmanuel,
And ransom captive Israel,
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear.

Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Thou Wisdom from on high,
Who orderest all things mightily;
To us the path of knowledge show,
And teach us in her ways to go.

Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Thou Rod of Jesse, free
Thine own from Satan’s tyranny;
From depths of hell Thy people save,
And give them victory over the grave.

Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Thou Day-spring, come and cheer
Our spirits by Thine advent here;
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night,
And death’s dark shadows put to flight.

Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Thou Key of David, come,
And open wide our heavenly home;
Make safe the way that leads on high,
And close the path to misery.

Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, O come, great Lord of might,
Who to Thy tribes on Sinai’s height
In ancient times once gave the law
In cloud and majesty and awe.

Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Thou Root of Jesse’s tree,
An ensign of Thy people be;
Before Thee rulers silent fall;
All peoples on Thy mercy call.

Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Desire of nations, bind
In one the hearts of all mankind;
Bid Thou our sad divisions cease,
And be Thyself our King of Peace.