Thoughts From My Big Green Chair

There are times I find that the best way to verbalize my thoughts is to quote someone who has said it better. When it comes to explaining my faith, I frequently turn to the hymns that I have been singing my entire life. Lent is one of those times when my introspection is best described by those songs we sing each year; they are songs that tell of our part in the cross that Christ bore. Beneath the Cross of Jesus is a song that can remember singing in Lenten services when I was very young. I’ll add a link to the melody if you are not familiar with it. Blessings.

Beneath the Cross of Jesus

Beneath the cross of Jesus
I long to take my stand;
The shadow of a mighty rock
Within a weary land,
A home within a wilderness,
A rest upon the way,
From the burning of the noontide heat
And burdens of the day.

Upon the cross of Jesus,
My eye at times can see
The very dying form of one
Who suffered there for me.
And from my contrite hear, with tears,
Two wonders I confess:
The wonder of his glorious love
And my unworthiness.

I take, O cross, your shadow
For my abiding place;
I ask no other sunshine than
The sunshine of his face;
Content to let the world go by,
To know no gain nor loss,
My sinful self my only shame,
My glory all, the cross.
--By Elizabeth C. Clephane