Psalm 1451 I will extol you, my God and King,
and bless your name forever and ever.
2 Every day I will bless you
and praise your name forever and ever.
3 Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised,
and his greatness is unsearchable.
4 One generation shall commend your works to another,
and shall declare your mighty acts.
5 On the glorious splendor of your majesty,
and on your wondrous works, I will meditate.
6 They shall speak of the might of your awesome deeds,
and I will declare your greatness.
7 They shall pour forth the fame of your abundant goodness
and shall sing aloud of your righteousness.
8 The Lord is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
9 The Lord is good to all,
and his mercy is over all that he has made.
10 All your works shall give thanks to you, O Lord,
and all your saints shall bless you!
11 They shall speak of the glory of your kingdom
and tell of your power,
12 to make known to the children of man your mighty deeds,
and the glorious splendor of your kingdom.
13 Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom,
and your dominion endures throughout all generations.
14 The Lord upholds all who are falling
and raises up all who are bowed down.
15 The eyes of all look to you,
and you give them their food in due season.
16 You open your hand;
you satisfy the desire of every living thing.
17 The Lord is righteous in all his ways
and kind in all his works.
18 The Lord is near to all who call on him,
to all who call on him in truth.
19 He fulfills the desire of those who fear him;
he also hears their cry and saves them.
20 The Lord preserves all who love him,
but all the wicked he will destroy.
21 My mouth will speak the praise of the Lord,and let all flesh bless his holy name forever and ever.
One of my flaws as a Christian is not truly being in love with praising the Lord. Others praise Him much better and with far better sincerity than I do. My maternal grandmother was one of the happiest people I've known in life; she had a very hard life, not many things in her life went in her favor. Her joy in life came from knowing where to look for her happiness ~ it was His eternal glory that gave her the joy in her life. All of her happiness came from the blessings He gave her.
When she died in 1992, Grandmother was 94 years old and she was wearing the wedding band from her husband, who had died in 1941, she had not seen him in 51 years. Grandmother had glorious dreams of her husband joyously in heaven with the Lord. We were in Louisiana visiting her family (& ours, Aunt Clarice) when the message came to come home, she was dying. The heart that had sustained her for so many, many years through so many circumstances was leading her home.
Waiting our return, was an amazing, amazing electrical storm (the likes of which I've never seen before or after) & my very young brother, 21 years old, who had sat with her dying all day. He was joined later in the day by my grandmother's adopted son. (My grandmother's son had 2 adoptions, his first adoptive mother beat him until there was scarring that remained for a long, long time. Relatives had told my Grandmother for many years to return him, it was when adoption was whispered like cancer. I told her that those prayers were hitting the ceiling and bouncing back. That was when my grandmother told me that she would never, ever, never quit praying for her son. She said it fiercely.)
That day was the only day in my life that a song praising the Lord came to me. I'm not musical, never has a song appeared in me or afterwards, but that day before we had the message, I sang it to my mother and she announced it to be beautiful. Just one line, but it was praise and it was a song. We travelled fast. My brother and uncle were glad to see us when we arrived after sunset. The nurse announced it would be any time, Grandmother had waited for us. We stroked her hair and I sang the song that had appeared to me that day. Almost immediately, she passed quickly and peacefully away. The electrical storm had stopped. A life had passed that had spent 94 years finding His praises. She had gone home.
A long time after that, about 12 or 13 years later, my uncle turned on a television evangelist and decided to read the Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren. At the age of 78, this angry, angry man was a man who had found the peace beyond understanding, he'd been adopted for the 3rd time by his Father, God of gods, Lord of lords, who had always loved him. My uncle was a new man in Christ. This is the first time in my life I've seen such a wonderful change in any human being. The anger which kept him so busy had ceased. My mother said there is a big party in Heaven for my uncle and my grandmother is leading the way.
P.S. Praise would have pleased my Grandmother to no end. When she was about 93, we went to see the great impressionist artists at the Kimball Museum in Ft. Worth. She who could rhapsodize about nature until your ears fell off. ("All of nature and sunsets are beautiful gifts from the Lord") . Grandmother walked with a cane & set off every alarm at the Kimball. She wanted to touch all of the great masters and feel the brush strokes. The guards tried to stop her, but she acted like she didn't hear. We were there during the week and it wasn't crowded. But we went through the whole museum as Grandmother touched, stroked, uhhed and ahhed over every painting. Every guard in the Kimball went with us, by the end they were smiling in glee too. I wonder if the Ft. Worth police had shown up, if they might have smiled with glee too. She would have ignored hand guns.
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