I love you, Lord
And I lift my voice
To worship You
Oh, my soul rejoice!
Take joy my King
In what You hear
Let it be a sweet, sweet sound in Your ear

Lord, I needed something simple– nothing long and involved – to express myself to You this morning.

Here’s a very nice video of the song and I also found a lovely “Story behind the song…” Have a blessed day!

Story behind the song: ‘I Love You Lord’

By age 24, Laurie Brendemuehl had met and married Bill Klein, and the Lord had given them their first child, a little girl. Bill was a student at Central Oregon Community College studying Forest Technology, and… well, let me have Laurie tell you the story, as she told it to me:

“It was a dark time in my life. We had no extra money, no friends nearby, no church home and my husband was busy all of the time with his studies. I didn’t drive, so I couldn’t get away. We lived on a highway in a mobile home, so I couldn’t even put the baby in a stroller and go for a walk. Our only neighbors were people long retired and tired of life. When I needed some encouragement there was no extra money for long distance calls to family or friends. I was lonely. The only thing I was committed to was trying to get up each morning before our baby, then a toddler, and spend some time with Jesus. I knew that was where the ‘life’ was.”

“The day the song came, I had gotten up early and was sitting with my Bible and my guitar. I realized that I didn’t have anything in me to sing to Jesus. I just didn’t have anything in me to offer Him. I was so empty. So, I prayed and said to the Lord, ‘If you want to hear me sing, would you give me something that you would like to hear?’”

“I started strumming on the guitar and the first words came out of my mouth with absolutely no effort. I love you Lord, and I lift my voice to worship You. I scribbled them on a piece of paper, just in case I would want to remember them, and sing them again. Those words meant a lot to me.”

I wondered if I could play the melody again — if I would even remember. I played and sang the two lines again. They were still there, in my mind. The last two lines just followed as effortlessly as the first two had come. It was a gift from God that just wrote itself.”

“Though it is a very simple song, it changed everything for me, and it still is changing life for me. When you are in a dark valley and the Lord gives you light, it makes all the difference, and you keep growing.”

Then Laurie shared with me this heartwarming story:

“The most meaningful time that I ever heard anyone sing my song was in the fall of 2000 while my husband and I were in a Discipleship Training School. Late one night in the dormitory, I heard a baby crying. I slipped down the hall to the outside of the door just to pray for the baby, that it would be able to sleep. As I was praying outside the door, I heard the mother singing a song, but the little one kept crying. She then began to sing “I Love You Lord,” and while she was singing, the baby fell asleep. The mother had no idea that the one who wrote the song was just outside the door.”

“We love Him, because he first loved us.” – 1 John 4:19

Apr 18th, Tues, 6:42 am