Lord of All, to Thee we raise, this our hymn of grateful praise....

As I was sitting here staring at the computer screen this morning I was thinking back over the last year and it's many challenges. I had to stop and remind myself that the year held many blessing as well. Not always obvious it is easy to overlook the things we take for granted. I think one of my greatest blessings this year has been the new friends God has brought into my life. Whether here in the flesh or those of you I met at the Ooze or blogging, I am so blessed and I thank God for all of you and the part you have played in my crazy evolving life this past year. It has been a year of great change and growth, and for those of you who helped me along the way I can't thank you enough. And now it's the first day of a new year full of possibilities. It will be interesting to see what God has planned for each of those days, and how I will choose to respond. It will be intriguing to see what new challenges, blessings, sorrows, joys, friends and events he will choose for me this year - and how I will grow because of it.
As I have been sitting writing, a song has been running through my head - and since it is a song of praise for the blessings we have been given, I thought I would end this post with the words of a hymn written by Folliot Sandford Pierpoint:

For the beauty of the earth
For the glory of the skies,
For the love which from our birth
Over and around us lies.

Refrain

Lord of all, to Thee we raise,
This our hymn of grateful praise.

For the beauty of each hour,
Of the day and of the night,
Hill and vale, and tree and flower,
Sun and moon, and stars of light.

Refrain

For the joy of ear and eye,
For the heart and mind's delight,
For the mystic harmony
Linking sense to sound and sight.

Refrain

For the joy of human love,
Brother, sister, parent, child,
Friends on earth and friends above,
For all gentle thoughts and mild.

Refrain

For Thy Church, that evermore
Lifteth holy hands above,
Offering up on every shore
Her pure sacrifice of love.

Refrain

For the martyrs' crown of light,
For Thy prophets' eagle eye,
For Thy bold confessors' might,
For the lips of infancy.

Refrain

For Thy virgins' robes of snow,
For Thy maiden mother mild,
For Thyself, with hearts aglow,
Jesu, Victim undefiled.

Refrain

For each perfect gift of Thine,
To our race so freely given,
Graces human and divine,
Flowers of earth and buds of Heaven.

Refrain