Greetings from the ice ark.
Outside my home, it's wind chill in the negatives and a great sea of ice all around me, white and foreboding.
Inside my home, it's a cozy nest. Thanks be to God and Oncor that the power never went out. So we're riding out the storm for a few days before the world reverts to an uneasy winter once again.
I had a blog ready with another quote from General Conference today, and I'm still working on the Iliad Book 9, but doing something a little different today.
I woke up mega early this morning with lots of new ideas for stories and titles swimming in my head. I definitely won't live long enough to write them all down, but glad to have them in my head.
Then we were setting up to have church from home today, and I discovered this:
It's a recording of the Christian hymn, "I Surrender All", written in 1896 by Judson W. Van DeVenter.
The thing that got me about this song, was that it's also in my book, "Sanctuary's Close", my first novel. I didn't know until today that the Tabernacle Choir ever sang this one.
There's a character in Chapter Three - you can read it in the sample here - who's stuck in a pretty alien place - her own damaged mind - and this song comes to her as my main character is trying to free her. It's a song her mother used to sing, and she sings it herself. As she does, the scorched earth around her begins to grow and green, symbolizing her healing as it happens.
I'd never heard it before I found it online, and it sounded perfect for the scene, so I included it, and it gave the moment so much more emotional power. Reading this scene, and hearing the music in my mind as she sang it, has many times left me crying...as this song did today when I heard it again, and years just seemed to telescope and swirl together.
I surrender all,
I surrender all,
All to Thee my blessed Savior
I surrender all...
In situations like that, Nature pinning me down in my little ice ark, what else can I do but surrender?
But I'm glad for my ark, that the Savior taught me over many years how to put together, and now, instead of fear, I'm at peace.
Stay warm everyone! :-)
