A Hymn a Day

Beside my scriptures I keep a small hymnbook and a pocket calendar that shows, next to each day’s date, how many days we are into the year. Each morning I look up the hymn that has the same number as the day. For example, on February 22, the fifty-third day of the year, I look up hymn 53, “Let Earth’s Inhabitants Rejoice.” I study the words and sometimes memorize them. Then I look up and read the scriptures listed at the end of the hymn and mark the hymn’s number alongside them. This makes it easy to use the hymns when I give talks or lessons. Also, below the hymn’s last stanza, I write references of other scriptures that I feel apply to it.

There are 341 hymns; that leaves twenty-four days in December that I devote to studying Christmas music.

My “hymn-a-day” brings me inner strength and joy. It has carried me through rough times and has been a motivator for right thinking. And it has been exciting to discover phrases from the hymns that answer questions I have been pondering.—Jeanne P. Lawler, Santa Fe, New Mexico