Give thanks to God, for he is good, his love will never end

We revert here to the theme of gratitude in a Psalm of contrasting structure. The ‘some … some … some … others’ in stzs 2–5 match the 4 word-portraits of wanderers, prisoners, sufferers and seafarers, each with their story and the praise of their Rescuer and Redeemer. One of this 4th group himself (see stz 5 of the hymn), John Newton said that as those on dry land may suffer much ‘yet know but little of the peculiar exercises of those who go down to the sea in ships; so … there are great waters, Psalm 107:24, known comparatively to few. Those who are brought through them, have more to say of the wonders of God in the great deep than others.’ Emma Turl has again tackled a longer Psalm, in this case the opening of the Psalter’s 5th and final book. It was partly prompted by a sermon by the then UK Director of The Gideons, Ian Hall, who used the Psalm to illustrate the effect of the Bibles they distributed, in many varieties of changed lives. He thus became one of the multitude of what she calls the ‘hidden contributors’. This was on 9 Dec 1984 (Bible Sunday, the 2nd in Advent) at Goldings Hill Evangelical Free Church in Loughton, Essex. The closing hymn (CH862) including the words ‘The Bible, too, he sends us …’, which she had never met before or since, was set to the tune SALVATORE, on which she based her first draft. She has written other texts in response to sermons, but this is the only one of its kind in Praise! In July 2004 Timothy Dudley- Smith approached the Psalm differently, with a 6 stz summary in SM; but as in ET’s text, stzs 2–5 of his Give thanks to God above deal with the 4 categories of need and rescue. HUFFLEY BANK was composed by Gill Berry for this text in April 1999 at Shrewsbury, by request of the editorial team. Like the words, it is published here for the first time. It is named from the house where two members of the composer’s church lived for nearly 40 years until summer 2000.

b Shrewsbury 1946. Stamford High Sch (Lincs) and Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford (MA English and Cert Ed). Born into a literary household, she loved poetry from childhood, and was converted aged 13 at a Scripture Union camp. She worked as VSO (Voluntary Service Overseas) for two years in Ugandan ‘revival country’. Following this she married John and spent the next ten years (1971-81) in Ghana, afterwards returning to live in Waltham Abbey, Essex, where she and her family joined Goldings Hill Evangelical Free Ch, Loughton (1982–2002). She now attends the Abbey Church. While enjoying chanted Psalms as a student she longed for more congregationally accessible ways of singing them, and attributes her first desire to write ‘Bible oriented verse’ to a literary household, and Anglican services (St Ebbe’s Oxford) with readings and canticles. Her first metrical versions were written between 1983 and 1985, during which time she had paraphrased the entire Psalter. A few of these Psalm texts were printed with other verses in Treasures Old and New, 1989, followed by Time to Celebrate 1999, with suggested tunes from her husband John and friend Gill Berry, qv. Some of these are specially needed to accompany a number of unusual metres. Subsequently she has revised many of her original texts in the light of further comments and computer assisted discoveries, and has also added some new versions.
The monthly Evangelicals Now (see under Benton J) published her work occasionally from 1993; Praise! is the first hymnal to include her texts and one of these features in the 2004 edn of CH. Her sight began to deteriorate early; by the age of 13 she could read only with a strong magnifying glass, reading became increasingly difficult and slow, and by her mid 20s she was completely blind. This made her unaware of ‘the oustanding new hymns and Psalm versions which others were already producing, which could have inspired me but could well have put me off’. See her comments on some ‘blindness/sight’ hymns, with practical pastoral considerations, in ‘Singing without seeing’ in HSB234 (Jan 2003). In an earlier Bulletin review (no.225, Oct 2000), Basil E Bridge calls her hymns ‘thoroughly biblical…well – sometimes ingeniously – crafted…I am sure we shall be hearing more of Emma Turl in the future’. Her own choice of 15 of them appears in the collection of contemporary hymns, Emma now attends the abbey church in Waltham Abbey. More of her hymns can be found on the website of The Jubilate Group: www.jubilate.org
Come Celebrate (2009). Nos.30C, 53, 84A, 106, 107, 110, 119G, 123, 130, 168, 825, 1011, 1014, 1034, 1038, 1041, 1045, 1053, 1054, 1058, 1059, 1062, 1063, 1069, 1087, 1088, 1089, 1091, 1092, 1096, 1101, 1103, 1107, 1108, 1110, 1134, 1137, 1195, 1213, 1216, 1239, 1246.