Here is a rousing call to worship, if ever there was one. The summons to worship reverberates throughout the psalm: proclaim, declare, ascribe, and, repeatedly, sing. But it is a command that is sometimes difficult to obey, for the circumstances of life can seem to choke us, making our praise catch in our throats. In the middle of the eighteenth century, Anne Steele, the reclusive daughter of an English village pastor, took up her pen and made her attempt to sing a new song. Despite painful personal losses resulting from chronic illness and the deaths of those dearest to her—losses which brought her to the edge of despair as she contemplated life as a "disastrous journey" marked by "pain and grief"—Steele wrote hymns in praise of God. And Christmas tells us how. For into the middle of these times of trouble that may threaten to quell our praise comes God incarnate, the Word itself made flesh. Christ has entered "this dark Wilderness, this vale of tears," and his birth is attended by another—hope itself is born. Here is a reason to sing, with Steele, a new song:
"Wrap'd in the gloom of dark despair, We helpless, hopeless lay:
But sovereign mercy reach'd us there, And smil'd despair away."
