If our recent ‘Songs of Praise’ service had been held two months ago, I wouldn’t have chosen this hymn. Whenever it’s been chosen for a service it’s been in an ‘All Age Worship’ and I’ve played it on my cello as part of our 316 Band. Usually I’ve moaned because it’s printed on 3 pages in Mission Praise with lots of page turnings back and forth. Eventually I even wrote out the bass line on manuscript paper to make it easier to read and play continuously. Consequently when concentrating on my line of music, which is furthest from the words, I’d never had opportunity to read them properly.

Then a few weeks ago I joined our band’s singers to help out and sang it for the first time - I was blown away by the words. It talks of the suffering of the vulnerable in society, the need to value skills and the plight of our beautiful world all often caused or amplified by our thoughtless, careless and greedy behaviour in the past and especially now.

We could all benefit from reading this hymn regularly as we look at the first photo of our beautiful earth from space and realise we are all in it together and with God’s help we can effect changes for the good.

Veronica Frost