Chattanooga, TN

Pops and I will be spending the night in Chattanooga. We are also going to be staying and going to church here in the morning. I called ahead for service times and found out that we are in for a treat. Bob Russell will be their speaker tomorrow. Are you familiar with him?
He is an evangelist and his home church is in Louisville, KY and has more than 18,000 members. He is a writer and speaker. Here is a sample of his writing.
America’s Prayer of Repentance

In 1995 I wrote a prayer of national repentance and offered it at the Kentucky Governor’s Prayer Breakfast in Frankfort Kentucky. The prayer was adapted by Joe Wright and presented as the prayer to open the Kansas House of Representatives in 1996.

You may have heard about the controversy stirred that day. The prayer infuriated several legislators; one member stormed out of the hall in protest. Several gave speeches critical of the prayer, and one even called it a “message of intolerance.”

The chaplain coordinator in the Nebraska legislature read the prayer the following month, stirring a debate there. Paul Harvey reported on the controversy and read the prayer on the air. He has since repeated the story, claiming it is one of the most requested readings he has ever had. The prayer has been widely circulated by e-mail.

On this National Day of Prayer in 2013, may we continue to offer this prayer and hope that it becomes “America’s Prayer of Repentance.”

O God, we know that your Word says, “Woe to those who call evil good,” but that’s exactly what we’ve done.

We have lost our spiritual equilibrium and inverted our values.

We confess that we have ridiculed the absolute truth of your Word and called it moral pluralism.

We have worshipped other gods and called it multiculturalism and New Age spirituality.

We have committed adultery and called it an affair.

We have endorsed perversion and called it an alternative lifestyle.

We have exploited the poor and called it the lottery.

We have neglected the needy and called it frugality.

We have rewarded laziness and called it welfare.

We have killed our unborn children and called it choice.

We have shot abortionists and called it justifiable.

We have neglected to discipline our children and called it building self-esteem.

We have failed to execute justice speedily, as your Word commands, and called it due process.

We have failed to love our neighbor who has a different color of skin and called it maintaining racial purity.

We have abused power and called it political savvy.

We have coveted our neighbor’s possessions and called it ambition.

We have polluted the air with profanity and pornography and called it freedom of expression.

We have made the Lord’s Day the biggest shopping and entertainment day of the week and called it free enterprise.

We have ridiculed the time-honored values of our parents and called it enlightenment.

Search us, O God, and know our hearts today. Try us and see if there be some wicked way in us; cleanse us of every sin and set us free. Though our sins be as scarlet, may they become white as snow. Though they be as crimson, may they be as wool.

Pops and I are really excited to get to hear him tomorrow.
All day long since we figured this is where we would be I have been having the Chattanooga Choo Choo song running through my head. My dad used to sing it when I was a little girl. Every time he heard a train whistle he would sing. Sure wish I could hear him sing it one more time.

CHATTANOOGA CHOO CHOO
Glenn Miller
Pardon me, boy
Is that the Chattanooga choo choo?
Track twenty-nine
Boy, you can gimme a shine
I can afford
To board a Chattanooga choo choo
I've got my fare
And just a trifle to spare

You leave the Pennsylvania Station 'bout a quarter to four
Read a magazine and then you're in Baltimore
Dinner in the diner
Nothing could be finer
Than to have your ham an' eggs in Carolina

When you hear the whistle blowin' eight to the bar
Then you know that Tennessee is not very far
Shovel all the coal in
Gotta keep it rollin'
Woo, woo, Chattanooga there you are

There's gonna be
A certain party at the station
Satin and lace
I used to call "funny face"
She's gonna cry
Until I tell her that I'll never roam
So Chattanooga choo choo
Won't you choo-choo me home?
Chattanooga choo choo
Won't you choo-choo me home?