Brighten Your Corner

July 30, 2014 (Wednesday)
Ina Mae Duley Ogden (1872-1964) planned on becoming an evangelist, but her father’s illness made it necessary for her to care for him for many years. The first verse and chorus of her song, “Brighten the Corner Where You Are,” reflects her life experience as she came to see that people can serve the Lord wherever they are and doing whatever the Lord leads them to do:

Do not wait until some deed of greatness you may do,
Do not wait to shed your light afar,
To the many duties ever near you now be true,
Brighten the corner where you are.
Brighten the corner where you are!
Brighten the corner where you are!
Someone far from harbor you may guide across the bar;
Brighten the corner where you are!

A well-known musician, Charles H. Gabriel, wrote the music for the song, and when published in 1913 it was enthusiastically received by the public. It even crossed over into the secular field and was recorded by several famous celebrities. I learned it when I was a little boy and I recall singing it with great gusto, joined by my grandparents.
Look around you. Is there a need you can meet? Perhaps that is God’s will for you, His call to Christian service. Perhaps God is calling you to, “brighten the corner where you are.”

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Through this toilsome world, alas,
Once and only once I pass,
If a good deed I may do,
If a kindness I may show
To a suffering fellow man,
Let me do it while I can,
No delay for it is plain
I shall not pass this way again.