I want to share a resource with you that I made for our family. It is a list of Hymns and Verses from A to Z that can be used alongside your Letter of the Week Home School lessons, as part of your family devotions, or with your own personal devotions. I pray that it is an encouragement to you and your family!
This list of hymns and accompanying Scripture verses is a result of a collision of life circumstances, a desire to grow in faith and faithfulness, and God’s kind providence in my life.
After the birth of our first child, I was struggling with naps and nursing and routine and all the things that come with newborns. My mind felt messy and sleep deprived, and I needed and craved someone else’s words to fill my mind and heart, rather than my own dark, anxious ones.
One morning I was singing Great Is Thy Faithfulness while Sophie sat on my lap drinking her milk. The hymnal we were using had Lamentations 3:19-33 printed on the right hand page, so I read it out loud after the hymn was over. I had been struggling with post-partum anxiety and fears about my own salvation, and on this particular morning the hymn and the Scripture were like manna for my hungry, tired, anxious soul.
I found myself wishing there were long passages of Scripture printed next to all of the hymns in our hymnal. That is where the idea for this particular resource was born.
How we use this: We sing the same hymn for one whole week at morning and/or evening Bible time. When Sophie was 1 and 2, we usually sang just one verse, or maybe the first and last verse.
As she is getting older, we are adding more verses and taking time to discuss what the hymn means.
I like to read the Scriptures out loud to further meditate on and illuminate the meaning of the hymn and to help shape our prayers for the day.
The Scriptures are what I found my heart longing for and crying out for on that anxious morning almost three years ago. Scripture is powerful. It is the very Word of God. Manna for our souls.
The sweet fruit of this practice has been hearing Sophie singing hymns in church and while she is playing or laying in bed. My hope is that they will take root in her soul and be a source of worship and comfort to her all her life.
I hope the sweet fruit in my life will be meditating on and remembering God’s promises and having a heart full of worship, rather than worry.
Download the PDF here: ABC Hymns and Verses PDF
Some notes about this resource:
- All of the hymns are public domain
- Verses are mostly from the NIV, with some from the ESV
- The margins are wide enough to punch holes and put it in a plastic folder with prongs (like this one).
- I made a Spotify Playlist for you to enjoy
- I had to be creative with Q,X,Y, Z. They were tricky!
- We use the Trinity Hymnal. There is a reference page at the end of the PDF with Hymn Numbers for the Trinity Hymnal.
- You can print the pages two to a sheet, cut in half, and make a little booklet to keep inside your own hymnal.
- If you are able, use a real hymnal, instead of just the words on the page. It has been neat to see Sophie recognize music notes when she sees them in other places. One day she said there was a hymnal in the sky, and I realized she was talking about a flock of birds flying overhead that looked like music notes in the sky.
- Great Is Thy Faithfulness is not part of this packet. It is not public domain. Here are the verses from Lamentations that were an encouragement to me.
Lamentations 3:19-33
19 Remember my affliction and my wanderings,
the wormwood and the gall!
20 My soul continually remembers it
and is bowed down within me.
21 But this I call to mind,
and therefore I have hope:22 The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
his mercies never come to an end;
23 they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
24 “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,
“therefore I will hope in him.”25 The Lord is good to those who wait for him,
to the soul who seeks him.
26 It is good that one should wait quietly
for the salvation of the Lord.
27 It is good for a man that he bear
the yoke in his youth.28 Let him sit alone in silence
when it is laid on him;
29 let him put his mouth in the dust—
there may yet be hope;
30 let him give his cheek to the one who strikes,
and let him be filled with insults.31 For the Lord will not
cast off forever,
32 but, though he cause grief, he will have compassion
according to the abundance of his steadfast love;
33 for he does not afflict from his heart
or grieve the children of men.
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