They were Merry and Pippen. Pippen lasted almost 2 years before we found her dead in the cage, with Merry looking suspiciously guilty. Merry lasted another year or so before she, too, was found less than alive.
I thought, surely, we were done with this experiment in animal husbandry. I was wrong.
She began wanting more hamsters to replace Merry and Pippen. Her reasons were sound. We already had the cage, bedding, food, etc. She would pay for them, please Momma, please??
I took her to the pet store. She chose 2 hamsters that could have been identical twins. They were kind of cute, I guess. They were brought home 2 months ago and quickly christened Cookie and Brownie, though none of us actually knew which one was which.
Yesterday, Sunday--the day for rest and all things holy--except for the minor fact that I'm pretty sure Sunday morning is the devil's dance hall. Something will be in plain sight, usually on the kitchen cabinet, until Sunday morning. Someone's hair will be picture perfect all week and Sunday morning is the time when it morphs into something Medusa would be afraid of. We can get up extra early and somehow the clock runs faster on Sunday morning. Marriages of steel crumple on Sunday morning only to rise, Phoenix style, by noon.
So, we are getting ready for church yesterday morning. Just so happens that, for the first time, Gracen and her dad were scheduled to sing a duet. She had surprised us both by asking if they could sing "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing" together sometime. Serious practice ensued.
From the playroom, aka the hamster room, we hear, "Daaaadddyyy!" And, even though I was standing in the closet trying to find something to wear (another Sunday morning plague), I knew. And right there in my closet on Sunday morning, I cursed either Cookie or Brownie, who by this point had been reduced to Dessert 1 or Dessert 2.
Sure enough, one of the critters--we're still not totally sure which--had met a less than timely demise. And standing in my closet, I determined to try to be sympathetic while still trying to help Gracen hold on to the fact that she has to sing in about an hour. There were tears (from her, not me--just to be clear) but not as many as had been shed over Merry and Pippen after all Dessert #1 or #2 hadn't been with us as long!
While sitting in church, I held my breath as Gracen and Jeff began their song. As they sang, I was so thankful that she had wanted to sing this song with her dad. The hymn's words are rich and comforting. When she came back to sit beside me and I put my arm around her and felt her deeply exhale, I knew that she had been listening to the words as well as singing them. It wasn't just the sigh of completion. It was more than that.
And that was what her dad and I had been praying for.
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.
Here's the mount I'm fixed upon it,
Mount of Thy redeeming love.
Here I raise my Ebenezer, here by Thy great help I've come.
And I hope by Thy good pleasure safely to arrive at home.
Jesus sought me when a stranger wandering from the fold of God.
He to rescue me from danger interposed His precious blood.
O the day when freed from sinning I shall see Thy lovely face
Clothed in linen, blood washed linen,
How I'll sing Thy sovereign grace.
Come my Lord no longer tarry, take my ransomed soul away.
Send Thine angles now to carry me to realms of endless grace.
O, to grace how great a debtor daily I'm constrained to be!
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter, bind my wandering heart to the 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.
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