Psalms and Old Rings

I wear these rings now on my right hand. The tiny ring was the wedding ring my Granny wore, but only after she lost her own ring and so wore her mother's. This, then, originally belonged to my Great-granny, and I'd reckon she married in the 1880s (or the 1870s) and its worn-ness and thin-ness show its age.

The other ring belonged to my Grandpa, spoken of in this blog post. He and my Granny married in 1932, and the ring dates either to that year or possibly even earlier. This signet ring has my Grandpa's initials etched into the gold, but age has faded the lettering, and it's barely visible now. 

To look at, it's not much of a ring. Neither of them are. Yet, both rings are so precious to me because I absolutely adored my Grandpa, and I am named after my Granny who had gone Home to be with the Lord before I was born.

In more recent times, my Mum wore these rings on her right hand until she went Home. And now they are mine.

I often look at them and 'see' my Mum's hand. My hands are so like hers - they ain't the prettiest! - and honestly, my hand wearing these rings is like an image of Mum's hand over the years. On a recent evening, as I sat in church at the Midweek meeting, I happened to look down and see my hand. I saw my hand and my rings, but my mind saw my Mum's hand; I saw my Grandpa's ring, my Granny's ring.... and just for a moment, my mind zoomed through the years, and I was connected with them all. It was for the tiniest of moments but just then I didn't see a chubby, lined, unelegant finger and two inexpensive rings. Rather I caught a glimpse of where these rings had previously been: on the fingers of people I loved more than I can say. 

I saw the rings in a new light.

As always, these things are 'better felt than tell't', so I'll refrain from attempting to describe the feeling any more than that.

The feeling I had reminded me somewhat of how I feel so often when I read the Psalms. The Psalms (unlike the rings) are truly and actually precious, but along with their inherent preciousness, I often feel an overwhelming connection with my Saviour whilst reading them. 

Not only are so many of the Psalms directly speaking of Christ, but I also imagine Him reading and singing the Psalms whilst He lived a pilgrim on this earth. There is barely a Psalm that doesn't make me think of how He would have felt reading it. I wonder how often our Lord went off on His own to read a Psalm that would comfort Him, encourage Him, and strengthen Him.

Think of Christ reading these words during His time on earth:

"I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills

from whence cometh my help?

My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth.

He will not suffer thy foot to be moved: he that keepeth thee will not slumber.

Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.

The Lord is thy keeper: the Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand.

The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night.

The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil: he shall preserve thy soul.

The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore."

What encouragement and strengthening for the Saviour! Little wonder He could sleep in a stormy boat, when He knew that the One who kept Him neither slumbered nor slept. We would do well to mirror Christ's trust and sleep easy, knowing that our Lord neither slumbers nor sleeps.

Or what about these words from Psalm 3:

4" I cried unto the Lord with my voice, and he heard me out of his holy hill. 

5 I laid me down and slept; I awaked; for the Lord sustained me."

What faith Christ could have! And what faith we can have, when we are in Christ! 

What about these words from Psalm 119:151

"I beheld the transgressors, and was grieved; because they kept not thy word."

No wonder our Lord was 'a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. How we are grieved when we see the wickedness of our culture - but how much more Christ was, when He is of purer eye than to behold sin.

*            *            *

Of course, there are the well known Messianic Psalms, which speak in such depth and detail of the sufferings of Christ. Psalm 22 and Psalm 69 are painful to read - the agonies and humiliation of our Beloved..... we are given such insight into His sufferings - more than in the Gospels because in the Psalms, we hear his heart and His thoughts.

His own words in these Psalms give us a taste of His unspeakable agony and suffering. Surely we never love Him more than when we read of His suffering for us.

And then we imagine Him reading and singing these words as a boy. As He got older, He would have understood more and more of the reality of what these words meant. 

*            *            *

And then, we have Psalms that almost burst our hearts - not with agony, but with joyous praise! 

Like here, in Psalm 24:

Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in.

8 Who is this King of glory? The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle.

9 Lift up your heads, O ye gates; even lift them up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in.

10 Who is this King of glory? The Lord of hosts, he is the King of glory.

Doesn't your heart burst!

Have a listen.... and worship!

*            *            *

For the past year or so, I've been reading one Psalm each morning, and writing down a portion of that Psalm. Sometimes, I write one verse; and other times, I write a few verses, or a whole section. But before I write anything, I tend to read the Psalm three times.

1. I read the Psalm. 

2. I read the Psalm, imagining Jesus reading the words. What do I think when I imagine Jesus reading these words? When can I imagine the words comforting Him? Encouraging Him? Teaching Him? Opening His own understanding?

3. I read the Psalm from my own perspective. What encouragement is there for me? What lessons are there here for me? What do I learn of Christ in this Psalm? What do the words teach me about my own Christian life?

*            *            *

Again and again, when prayer is hard, I 'pray the Psalm'. Countless of them are wonderful to simply pray back to God. He is the Author, and He loves to hear His own Word being spoken back to Him. Our old minister used to say: 'God loves to hear you say, 'Thou hast said.....'!

Truly, the Psalms speak about Christ, they speak to Christ, and they were read and sung by Christ.

We can't hope for more connection with our Saviour than that! It's no wonder we love them so much.

Out-takes of our Photo Taking ...

In the previous post, I showed y'all all the lovely photos that made us seem well-behaved and even - dare I say it - normal.

But to get to the publishable-photo stage, we had to go through bits and bobs of, well, drama.

See, this is the kind of thing that happens when you put two sisters next to each other in a photo line up. 

'Hair all sorted for the photo, right?' 

'Well, I'll soon sort that...'

Meanwhile - take note - my folks and all the boys are completely well behaved and beautifully posed.

It's always the girls that cause the problems. Always the girls. 

You just ask any mum with sons .... in particular, ask my own mum. Isn't that right, Marina?!

Mums and their boys. It's simply the way of the world...

Well, finally we pretty much had order restored and we were able to take some pretty decent photos.

*      *      *

Below is a photo of Mum and Auntie Jessie. 

Here, they are beautifully presented and have their 'for the camera' faces on.

But a short while later, I was able to take a photo that totally and completely and utterly sums the pair of them up ...

This. 

This is them. Everyone who knows Mum and Auntie Jessie can actually hear them as they look at this photo. 

Honestly, it is them, summed up in a few inches of photo!

*      *      *

And then we had Neil and Donna and the boys. Remember the lovely photo of them all yesterday?

Well, shortly before the 'good' photo was taken, we had this. Now, all looks fairly normal, but take a look at Mark's hand ...

And now take a look at Mark's face ... He's up to something.

And NOW, see Neil's face! 

That 'butter wouldn't melt in my mouth' nephew of mine had had great fun - very much at his dad's expense.

Dontcha just love kids!

Order almost restored ... but a re-writing of the will may be on the way.

Ross is smiling. And well he might.

Mum's Birthday

Last week, we were able to have an amazing family get-together for Mum's birthday. Over the past few years, my brother, Neil, has missed so many family events because of his work, but this time even he was with us.... 

Marina and I always laugh at Mum with 'her boy', so undoubtedly the day was made doubly and trebly special for Mum with 'her boy' being there. Isn't that right, Marina?!



Although the Builder was missing, all Mum and Dad's children and grandchildren were there - including Catherine who'd come from Northern Ireland - as well as Mum's dearest friend, Auntie Jessie. It was a wonderful providence that had us all together.

In this post I'll show you only the 'good' photos. You know the ones .... the photos that make us all look well behaved and even normal.

It's nice to kid on to folks sometimes.

Mum, her daughters and her granddaughters. Don't we all scrub up well?

And here's Mum and Dad with their three children. Yes, I use the word 'children' advisedly. I am just beginning to learn that no matter how old your family is, they are always your 'children'. This is definitely the case with the wonderful parents God gave us.

*      *      *

Seeing we had families together, I thought I'd click away and get family groups. 


This is Mum and Dad's baby girl with her husband and family. She doesn't need to 'scrub up well', because she is always scrubbed up. When I grow up I want to be like her ...

As I say, in another post, I'll show some of the out-takes ... but in the photo below, Neil's son, Mark, look absolutely like butter wouldn't melt in his mouth, right?

Who says the camera never lies...

Of course, the Builder wasn't there, but I still got some photos with my kiddos.

Family is so precious. What a gift God gave us when He placed us in families! What pictures we have of the love God shows toward His family within our own family units. Right now, we are all giving thanks for the opportunity to have met this way because now that so many of the children are older and living in different places, it's always more difficult to actually get everyone in one place at the one time. God is so kind.