Fluttering Leaves Vs. Fruit

[Certain Hope]

Just wanted to share this excerpt from a devotional message I read today...

There is an old legend about a great teacher who was walking through an orchard on a windy day. The teacher came to a fence which divided the grove from an adjoining forest and he imagined that he could hear the trees talking to each other. The maple trees taunted a group of nearby fruit trees, "Why don't your leaves rustle in the breeze like ours so that you could be heard from a distance?"

"We don't need such useless fluttering to draw attention to our presence," was the reply. "Our fruit speaks for us!"

At the close of the message, were these few words, a stanza of an old hymn, I guess:

I would be true, for there are those who trust me
I would be pure, for there are those who care.
I would be strong for there is much to suffer;
I would be brave, for there is much to dare.

    Hope

[WRITE]

now you take me back to childhood, I wrote a melody for those words over 30 years ago!
The second verse says

I would be friend of all, the foe, the friendless.
I would be giving, and forget the gift,
I would be humble, for I know my weakness,
I would look up, and laugh, and love and live.

Beautiful. Thank you.

[Certain Hope]

Thank you, Write. I'd never known these words before, and now I wish that I could hear the melody you wrote for them... the beauty of the truest things is unfading.

With love,
Hope

[Hopalong]

Dang, Write...
you have a LOT of music in you, and I bet your choral work is gorgeous.

(Wrong thread to say this...but thanks for your sweet message about my Sunday. I was really really happy to read about yours too!)

(((((((((Write)))))))) 

Hops

[WRITE]

The words are by Howard Arnold Walter, he was from Connecticut, very talented, he graduated from Princeton in 1905 and wrote the hymn in 1906 whilst studying in Japan. He sent it home to his mother who forwarded it to Harper's Magazine, who published it. In 1912 he went to serve the Young Men's Christian Association in India, and was told he had a terminal heart defect, his response was ' then I should get to work at once.' He died 6 years later, his last words were 'Christ, I am ready'.

There is a third verse which I didn't know but looked up today:

I would be faithful through each passing moment,
I would be constantly in touch with God;
I would be strong to follow where He leads me,
I would have faith to keep the path Christ trod.

And so he did.

[Certain Hope]

I want to have that sort of single-minded focus!