RSS

Author Archives: MaryO

About MaryO

Cushing's and kidney cancer (renal cell carcinoma) patient, founder, owner and webmaster of Cushing's Help and Support, web designer, piano teacher and mom. I am a Cushing's patient who has dealt with Cushing's symptoms since 1983 (or earlier) and the aftereffects of pituitary surgery since 1987. Because I had very little support for my symptoms, diagnosis and surgery, I decided to try to make things a little better for other patients and started a support site called Cushing's Help and Support in 2000. The site has grown to astronomical numbers. This disease isn't as rare as doctors have told us! In 2006, I was also diagnosed with kidney cancer (renal cell carcinoma). My left kidney and adrenal gland were removed. Having an adrenal gland removed complicates my post-Cushing's symptoms. I am not planning to have any more rare and unusual diseases. My entire bio to date can be found here: http://www.cushings-help.com/maryos_story.htm But, enough of that - it's not always about Cushing's, or even Cancer. This one is about Life!

Verse of the Day – June 5

My help comes from the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth.~Psalm 121:1-2 – NIV

 

Tags: , , , , ,

June 4 is Trinity Sunday

 

Trinity Sunday is celebrated on the Sunday after Pentecost, reminding us of the three different ways we experience the one God whom we worship. We worship God the Creator; we worship Jesus who experienced the life of a human; and we worship the way that God works within us – the Holy Spirit.

Join Pender in celebrating this special Sunday.

 
Leave a comment

Posted by on June 4, 2023 in Holidays, Pender UMC, Posts of Interest

 

Tags:

Contemporary Cantata, Does God Hear Me?

A special service of songs and stories led by Worship Leader, Uriah Moore and featuring the Pender Praise Band. This was a contemporary worship experience featuring music from Doe, Elevation Worship, Kari Jobe, Karen Clark Sheard, and more.

In addition to singers, the band consists of guitar, drums, percussion, autoharp, saxophone, trumpet and clarinet.

This group leads worship every Sunday at 11:15 am online and in person at Pender UMC, 12401 Alder Woods Drive, Fairfax, VA US 22033.

 
Leave a comment

Posted by on June 1, 2023 in Music, Pender UMC, Videos

 

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Hymn History: Jesus, Thine All-Victorious Love

The Pender UMC Traditional Service Opening Hymn “Jesus, Thine All-Victorious Love” on Sunday May 14, 2023 was played by Heidi Jacobs on piano and Brian Stevenson on organ.

This was Heidi’s first Sunday as Pender’s Pianist.

“Jesus, Thine All-Victorious Love,”
by Charles Wesley
The United Methodist Hymnal, No. 422.

Methodists need no introduction to Charles Wesley. For that matter, neither do most singing Christians! Perhaps no other hymn writer except Isaac Watts is so well loved as Charles Wesley. Few were as prolific, at least, or as wide-ranging with regard to the theological topics they addressed….

“Jesus, Thine All Victorious Love” is found in the United Methodist Hymnal at No. 422. As with many Wesley hymns that we sing today, the four stanzas given in the UMH are but part of a much longer hymn called “My God! I know, I feel thee mine.” The complete hymn is found in Collection of Hymns for the Use of the People Called Methodists in the section, “For Believers, Groaning for Full Redemption.” Atop the hymn text in the early editions sits a scripture reference to Romans 4:13, which speaks of the promise God made to Abraham and the righteousness of his faith. The full hymn has twelve stanzas, which can be divided thematically into four groups. Stanzas 1 to 3 articulate an individual’s desire for intimate communion with God the Father using physical, even visceral, images. Stanza 2 is particularly beautiful and connects to the passage from Romans 4, using the language of faith:

I hold Thee with a trembling hand,
But will not let Thee go,
Till steadfastly by faith I stand,
And all Thy goodness know.

This opening group of stanzas speaks of how such an intimate relationship with God not only sustains us, but gives us “health, and life, and power, and perfect liberty.” The use of superlatives such as “all Thy goodness” and “perfect liberty” highlights well the Wesleyan idea of Christian perfection.

The second section focuses on the love of Jesus and that love’s redemptive power. There are several scriptural images at play, and as one might expect from Wesley, or indeed from most anyone writing about love, conversion of the heart is central to this section. The United Methodist Hymnal version begins with this stanza, which is number 4 in the original.

Jesus, thine all victorious love
shed in my heart abroad;
then shall my feet no longer rove,
rooted and fixed in God.

The third section of the text focuses on the Holy Spirit; its three stanzas are all included in The United Methodist Hymnal. One particularly potent stanza speaks of the sanctifying power of the Spirit, highlighting another key tenet of Wesleyanism.

Refining fire, go through my heart,
Illuminate my soul;
Scatter Thy life through every part,
And sanctify the whole.

The fourth section brings to completion the sanctification of the believer and the experience of Christian perfection. The poetry of Wesley’s final stanza is both beautiful and unequivocal in its theological witness:

My steadfast soul from falling free,
Shall then no longer move;
But Christ be all the world to me,
And all my heart be love.

Those who might bravely choose to sing all twelve stanzas of this hymn would experience a beautiful, thoroughly trinitarian witness to the redemptive power of God’s love in Jesus Christ through the sanctification of the Holy Spirit. However, most congregations will probably opt to sing a subset of stanzas. The four stanzas found in the United Methodist hymnal are well suited to the Easter season. Beginning with a stanza about the “victorious love” of Jesus Christ reminds us of Jesus’s resurrection and victory over death, that is, of Easter. Following that stanza, then, the next three stanzas about the working of the Spirit seem to suggest the kind of liturgical flow that the Church experiences in the transition from Easter to Pentecost. That liturgical flow is made especially apparent in Year C of the Sunday lectionary, when the gospel of Luke is read.

“Jesus, Thine All Victorious Love” is a common meter text (8.6.8.6.) and could be sung to a great many tunes. It is often paired with Lowell Mason’s version of AZMON, which is ideal for most stanzas of the text. The iambic structure of the hymn aligns well with the fact that AZMON begins with a pickup note. However, because two lines of the stanza “Jesus, thine all victorious love” begin with a stressed syllable (“Je-sus” and “root-ed”), using AZMON, which has both a pickup and fast note values on the downbeat of each measure, could be awkward. One might consider singing the hymn to a common meter tune that begins without a pickup, such as ST. AGNES. Regardless of the tune chosen, though, or the number of stanzas one endeavors to sing, “Jesus, Thine All Victorious Love” is an exemplary Wesleyan hymn. Consider it the next time you sing during Eastertide.

Adapted from https://www.umcdiscipleship.org/resources/history-of-hymns-jesus-thine-all-victorious-love-wesley

 

Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Verse of the Day – Memorial Day

For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. ~2 Corinthians 10:3 – NIV

 

Tags: , , , ,

 
%d bloggers like this: