Our aims are one
Our comforts and our cares.

 My heart was filled to the brim yesterday...my whole family gathered to celebrate my second son's birthday. My youngest son came home on Friday when his college classes were finished so that they could celebrate together on Friday evening, my daughter and her boyfriend drove down from college on Sunday morning, and my oldest son and his wife came straight to dinner from the church youth retreat they had run all weekend.  It was a celebration of life, and family, and love....like any other family we've had some real highs and lows the last few years, and it felt so good to gather together because we like to be together and enjoy each other's company.  And yes, all five pounds of mashed potatoes were consumed--in fact, the only left overs were just a couple lonely slices of birthday cake!  Because I grew up with Sunday family dinners after church, the quaint hymn below seems a perfect tribute to our family gathering yesterday and a nice reminder as we start a new week to work towards a true fellowship of kindred minds, united in perfect love and friendship. 

Methodist Church, Cades Cove, Great Smoky Mountains National Park



Blessed Be the Tie that Binds

1. Blessed be the tie that binds
Our hearts in Christian love;
The fellowship of kindred minds
Is like that to that above.

2. Before our Father's throne
We pour our ardent prayers;
Our fears, our hopes, our aims are one
Our comforts and our cares.

3. We share each other's woes,
Our mutual burdens bear;
And often for each other flows
The sympathizing tear.

4. When we asunder part,
It gives us inward pain;
But we shall still be joined in heart,
And hope to meet again.

5. This glorious hope revives
Our courage by the way;
While each in expectation lives,
And longs to see the day.

6. From sorrow, toil and pain,
And sin, we shall be free,
And perfect love and friendship reign
Through all eternity.