This week I have been driving my wife’s minivan, as she and the children are out of town traveling with family. I discovered that all four of the Indelible Grace albums were in the CD changer. Not to be confused with CCM, the songs are simply old hymns that have been put to new music (more About IG). I have listened to each of the tracks before, and yet there was one song song that sounded new to my ears. And like many do when they find a fresh song, I kept playing it over and over and over again.

The category heading in the Trinity Hymnal for hymn #615, Come, Ye Disconsolate, Where’er Ye Languish, is aptly: Consolation. Yet as I have been meditating over and praying the words of the hymn, I find myself thinking that in a way the label is a disservice. We live our lives acting as if consolation is only needed when the chips are down, but pretty much the rest of the time we are alright on our own. That is not the gospel. If we are honest with ourselves, we begin to realize that we are all truly disconsolate: fallen and falling apart people living in a broken and dying world who are in need of a cure which heaven can only provide.

Come, ye disconsolate, where’er ye languish,
come to the mercy seat, fervently kneel:
here bring your wounded hearts, here tell your anguish;
earth has no sorrows that heav’n cannot heal.

Joy of the comfortless, light of the straying,
hope of the penitent, fadeless and pure!
Here speaks the Comforter, in mercy saying,
“Earth has no sorrows that heav’n cannot cure.”

Here see the Bread of Life; see waters flowing
forth from the throne of God, pure from above:
come to the feast prepared; come, ever knowing
earth has no sorrows but heav’n can remove.

— St. 1-2, Thomas Moore, 1816; St. 3, Thomas Hastings, 1832