Monday's Mourning Ministry - Jesus Had a Little Lamb - Come Thou Fount ~Chad Cates

This picture is on Merry Katherine's head stone at her grave site.

"Jesus and the Lamb," 1982 ~Katherine Brown

Monday's Mourning Ministry

Jesus Had a Little Lamb

Come Thou Fount ~Chad Cates

On Merry Katherine's first year anniversary of her death, I wrote a poem trying to articulate some of what I saw happening in Merry Katherine's life at the time of her death. I put this poem in our local newspaper for her memoriam:

Jesus Had a Little Lamb

Jesus had a little lamb;

Her name was Merry Prince,

And many places Merry would go

Would make her Savior wince.

She followed Him to "the streets" one day

Which was against the rule;

It made the children laugh and play

To see a lamb so "cool."

But Jesus saw her heart that day

And said, "My child, you'll be My tool

To reach My lambs who've gone astray

Into the grasp of the Enemy, cruel."

He took her up to Heaven

To be with Him at last,

But when He ran to embrace her,

She cried, "But Lord, I wandered from Your path!"

He wiped her tears and held her close,

"My child, don't you understand --

I took care of your sins so long ago

In My most sacred plan.

"I loved you so and sent My Son

To die upon that cross

So that you and all My other lambs

Would never more be lost.

"Yes, My child, you wandered from Me,

But since you were Mine, I never did depart;

When you looked to Me to set you free,

I heard the cries of your heart.

"And now your story will be told

To many people young and old,

Of My amazing love and grace

Given for your soul.

"Together you and I work as a team

To fulfill your precious dream

Through other lambs who are still on earth

To lead your friends to their second birth

"So they can join us too some day

Freed from all their sins

And they will find that Life with Me

Brings Joy that never ends."

Jesus had a little lamb

Her fleece was white as snow

And everywhere that Merry went

His love was sure to flow.

And now she lives right by His side,

From Him never more to roam --

Content in His presence to abide

Safe in Her Father's Home.

Now that with God's help, His little lamb has

"fought the good fight, finished the race, and kept the faith,"

She may now be with Him in Heaven to gaze upon His face,

And ever live to praise Him for His amazing Grace.

Merry Katherine Prince

March 29, 1987 August 2, 2006

Safe in Her Savior's Arms

Isaiah 40:11

*****

For Merry Katherine's funeral, her two brothers, then 24 and 21 years old, helped me to choose the songs and pictures we would use for her funeral. Her older brother Rollin chose the very precious and sacred song, "Come to Jesus" by Chris Rice, for her. Her brother Nathan chose the following song so beautiful and apt at describing her love for the Lord and yet her struggle of being "prone to wander" as she explored life extravagantly, even if at times recklessly: "Come Thou Fount" by Chad Cates.

I have been so frustrated up to now because I looked and looked on You Tube and could not find Chad Cates' very anointed version of this wonderful hymn. I expressed my lament to my sons over time as they are so knowledgeable about finding things on the internet.

Upon my visit with my son Rollin, my daughter-in-law Stephanie, and my newborn grandbaby "Ellie" last weekend, Rollin informed me that he had shared my chagrin over not finding the Chad-Cates rendition with Chad Cates, himself! (Rollin, Nathan and Merry Katherine have all known Chad Cates personally because he had led the music for some of their church summer youth camps (held at the beach in Panama City, Florida); the church called these annual church camps "Sonburn").

Chad Cates graciously told Rollin he would put the song on YouTube for me! And so, today I get to share it with you! Here is the very inspired and poignant rendition of "Come Thou Fount" by Chad Cates as it was played at Merry Katherine's funeral on August 6, 2006:

Come Thou Fount

~Chad Cates

Come Thou Fount of every blessing

Tune my heart to sing Thy grace.

Streams of mercy never ceasing,

Call for songs of loudest praise.

Teach me some melodious sonnet

Sung by flaming tongues above

Praise His name; I'm fixed upon it

Name of God's redeeming love.

Hitherto Thy love has blessed me;

Thou hast brought me to this place.

And I know Thy hand will bring me

Safely Home by thy good grace.

Jesus sought me when a stranger

Wandering from the fold of God,

He to rescue me from danger

Bought me with His precious blood.

O to Grace how great a debtor

Daily I'm constrained to be

Let Thy goodness like a fetter

Bind my wand'ring heart to Thee.

Prone to wander Lord I feel it,

Prone to leave the God I love.

Here's my heart, O take and seal it;

Seal it for Thy courts above!

Here's my heart, O take and seal it;

Seal it for Thy courts above!

~written by John Wyeth and Robert Robinson,

~adapted by Chad Cates

*****

The original hymn:

COME THOU FOUNT OF EVERY BLESSING

As written by John Wyeth and Robert Robinson

Come thou Fount of every blessing, tune my heart to sing Thy grace.

Streams of mercy never ceasing, call for songs of loudest praise.

Teach me some melodious sonnet, sung by flaming tongues above.

Praise the mount! I’m fixed upon it, mount of Thy redeeming love.

Here I raise mine Ebenezer, hither by Thy help I’m come.

And I hope by Thy good pleasure, safely to arrive at home.

Jesus sought me when a stranger, wand’ring from the fold of God.

He to rescue me from danger, interposed His precious blood.

O to grace how great a debtor, daily I’m constrained to be!

Let Thy grace, Lord, like a fetter, bind my wand’ring heart to Thee.

Prone to wander, Lord I feel it, prone to leave the God I love.

Here’s my heart, Lord, take and seal it, seal it for Thy courts above.

Painting, by artist Katherine Brown - http://www.christcenteredmall.com/stores/art/brown/jesus_and_the_lamb_black_and_white.htm#options

Poem - Jesus Had a Little Lamb - Angie Bennett Prince, July, 2007

Song, Come Thou Fount by Chad Cates - http://youtu.be/28bjLncPy6U

Friday's Faith - Writing My Heart Out in Poetry or "Name It to Tame It" ~with Dr. Daniel J. Siegel

Friday's Faith

Writing My Heart Out in Poetry

or

"Name It to Tame It"

~with Dr. Daniel J. Siegel

There are so many things on this planet which are simply unbearable. Impossible to be borne.

Life isn’t fair. Innocents suffer. The wicked seem to prosper. All our “strutting and fretting” ends in death. As Paul puts it, “The whole world groans as in travail until now...” Centuries of flawed mankind screaming through the painful process of metamorphosis. Against such a flood of pain, such a collective cry of anguish that crescendos to unearthly roar, what can be the response? How are we to address so much suffering? We can’t fix it all. We can’t fix anybody, especially ourselves.

Platitudes don’t help much.

Sometimes words are not only inadequate, they are next to impossible.

~Kim Arnold, Katherine Arnold Wolfe's Mom

*****

Early on in my grief, I intuitively knew I needed to document my child-loss grief, so I attempted to journal. I tried it, but it felt too harsh, too graphic, too tormenting...having to d.o.c.u.m.e.n.t in cold hard data the one fact I never, ever wanted to happen?

I couldn't do it.

It was too stark, too traumatizing.

So I prayed and asked my Heavenly Father what I should do.

And He, very pointedly, whispered to my spirit,

"Write poetry."

I could not understand such a directive; it made no "sense" to me, but I started writing... I began writing out my anguished feelings through poetry.

As I began writing the poetry, I began to recognize an interesting process. Poetry is like picking up a camera to take a snapshot of something important. The poetry, like the camera, "captures" just a moment in time of where you are in your emotional angst. So in writing poetry, what seemed to be called for was for me to

1) Feel the moment in as much fullness as I could in all of its vitality (a right-brain activity), and then try to

2) Capture that moment in words to describe it in its true nature to the best of my ability (a left-brain activity).

Through my study of trauma and child-loss grief, I began learning the scientific importance of right-brain exercises to "enter the back door" of the brain to grab hold of some of the volatile emotional material trapped in the limbic system of the brain in order to move it out and up into the other parts of the brain, like the pre-frontal cortex, for it to be processed on through the brain. In enabling the other parts of the brain to receive such poignant material, the language centers of the brain could help me begin the process of ultimately integrating such horrific and unwanted material into the rest of my life, exposing the new Angie amidst her child-loss, helping me somehow to accept the unacceptable I never wanted to accept.

I recognized at the time that I was able to feel the true depths of the emotion (giving release to my right brain), and then when I would try to find the appropriate (and rhyming) words to describe the emotion (working my left brain) in order to write a poem, I could feel a transition back and forth from the heavy emotions. So just taking a breather from my emotions then to try to write about them was providing a "space" in which I was able to take a break from the intensity of the pain!

So today, I was quite surprised as I was perusing a book I had gotten from the library called Mindsight by psychiatrist, Daniel J. Siegel, M.D., as I stumbled across a scientific description of the essence of what my writing my grief out through poetry was accomplishing in my grief-struck brain...

*****

Dr. Siegel says the traumatized person is

"needing to find a way to bring balance to over-active feelings."

He goes on to say, (when a person is experiencing such volatility of emotion...)

Such people have an excess of right mode (emotional) flow without enough linkage to the left (language/cognition mode) and may suffer from emotional dysregulation and chaotic outbursts.

They can become overwhelmed by fragmented autobiographical images, filled with bodily sensations, awash in emotions that overwhelm and confuse.

For these people, balance entails gaining some mental distance in the sanctuary of the left mode.

"Since the right hemisphere is more intimately linked to the emotion-generating subcortical areas, we can see why raw, spontaneous feeling is more fully and immediately felt in the right mode---and why it makes sense that linking the right and left modes through the left-hemisphere function of language might bring about the necessary balance.

And indeed, studies done by my colleagues at UCLA have actually shown that

(N)aming an affect soothes limbic firing.

Sometimes we need to

"Name It To Tame It."

We can use the left language centers to calm the excessively firing right emotional areas. But again, the key is to link left and right, not replace one imbalance with another.

~Dr. Daniel J. Siegel, in his book Mindsight, (highlights mine)

*****

What a sweet intervention given to me by my Heavenly Father without my even understanding cognitively nor emotionally what He was doing with such a directive! How sweet. How loving. How nurturing. How healing.

And how faith-building to know if He can gently guide in the raw depths of my grief when I don't even understand what He is up to, how comforting to know He can and will guide me each step of the way through the rest of my arduous grief journey of mourning my baby girl.

Picture thanks to FotoSearch.com

Kim Arnold's blog about Katherine's story is amazing ~ See http://katherineawolf.blogspot.com/

Daniel J. Siegel, M.D. from his book Mindsight: The New Science of Personal Transformation, see Chapter Six