Hello, Everybody!

[Mary Emily]

What a blessing it is to be part of this beautiful forum--a true expression of the
love of Jesus!

My name's Mary Emily (do call me Mary!) and I'm from the northeast coastal area of the USA. I'm a retired theological editor, translator (French) and proofreader. I have a very strong interest in prayer and I love to pray because that gets me closer to Jesus.

I go to a nice big church where when we finish the service and have the fellowship hour, we then go from the church to the train station and give the boxes of freshly-made lunches to the transients who have no other place to shelter but the station. The ladies in our church are fabulous cooks and some Sundays they make tiny little donuts for all of us--yumm!

I also love reading the Bible, and way back in the early 1970s I had a chance to visit Jerusalem, so I carried my Bible with me, and took the "In the Steps of Jesus" tour so that at each place I could read excerpts from the New Testament that told about what Jesus did at each place. At the well in Sychar where Jesus met the woman at the well, they gave me a little bottle of water from the very well itself. I still have the little bottle, but after all these years the water evaporated....

Well, I know it's going to be a great blessing to be with you all. And I pray that God will send His richest blessings on each one of you! Praise Him!

Mary Emily

 

[Cody]

Hey Mary, It's good to have you here at Talk Jesus. I hope you enjoy the fellowship here. It's cool you're interested in prayer, I love it myself. It's so awesome to know that we have a best friend we can talk to when ever we want. I hope you enjoy yourself here and remember to read the Forum Rules. God Bless you

 

[Mary Emily]

Thank you so much, Cody2

Lovely to meet you, Cody2! I think your home state is just beautiful, the mountains are a great place to pray, I always think, and when I lived in Atlanta we used to go to Gatlinburg all the time.

I used to look at the mountains and sing, "His foundation is in the holy mountains" (Ps 87:1).

Do they do any "Sacred Harp" shape-note singing there where you are?

I am so glad you too are interested in prayer. Yes, Jesus is the best friend we have, and we never have to worry about disturbing him in the middle of the night. I do a lot of my work at night when it's quiet, so I like to take "prayer breaks" in the midst of the work.

May the angels bear your prayers to the throne of grace,

Best wishes, Mary E.

 

[Cody]

Thanks, I love it here. Beautiful nature and very nice people. I've never heard of "Sacred Harp" shape-note singing before, so I don't know if we have it or not. It does sound interesting though.

 

[Mary Emily]

Sacred Harp Singing

Cody2, I've not been on Talk Jesus long enough to be able to post links, but if you do a web search for "Sacred Harp Singing" you can find some good info
about it. It's wonderful training for people like me, who can't carry a tune in
a bucket, because the notes all have different shapes and when you get the hang of it, you know automatically how high or how low to go when you come to the next shaped note.

It's always sung unaccompanied, just the voices of God's people praising God. Some of it sounds a little mournful, but the tunes are not only very very old, some of them are written in meter so that you can change them around. The Scottish Presbyterians use some of those tunes to this day, to fit to their Psalter which is a translation of the Psalms of the King James version into hymns that rhyme. The most popular of all those that we all know is "Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow" (Old Hundredth is the name of the tune, and the whole hymn begins with "All People That On Earth Do Dwell", which I think is actually Psalm 95, turned into rhyming stanzas.

I know there must be places in Tennessee where people still sing these fine old hymns. There's no "harp" in Sacred Harp Singing, but I think they got the "harp" reference out of Psalm 33:2, where it says,

Praise the Lord with harp: sing unto Him with the psaltery and an instrument of ten strings.

If you can find a "Primitive Baptist" or "Primitive Methodist" church out in the country, they may still do it, but your choir director may know about it and be able to help you too, or your pastor may.

You may not like it--it's very old-fashioned, but I like it because it helps me learn to sing the right notes. I just sing it by myself here at home; nobody up here sings it.

Best wishes,

Mary

 

[Cody]

It sounds awesome, I'll check it out sometime. I go to a Baptist church now. The instruments we have are: piano, organ, guitars, and bass guitar. There are many string instruments used.

 

[Chad]

Nice intro sister

Welcome to the forums. Glad your here with us and hope you enjoy the fellowship

 

[Mary Emily]

Thank you!

Dear Chad and Cody2,

Many thanks to both of you, and many thanks to our dear Lord for this brilliant forum where we can come to glorify Him!

Happily,

Mary E.

 

[rizen1]

Jesus is Love

Grace and Peace

Welcome Sister

To the Chief Musician. To Jeduthun. A Psalm of David. Truly my soul silently waits for God; From Him comes my salvation.

Psalm 62:1

 

[Mary Emily]

With the guidance of so many good Christians here, rizen1, and with such a glad welcome, who could fail to follow your example and confess Jesus as their Saviour!

May He dwell with us, and we with Him, all the days of our life.

Mary