"WE'LL UNDERSTAND IT BETTER BY AND BY"

by Albin Covington

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READER'S RESPONSE

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Dear Mil, I appreciate your information on hymns. It brings back some memories to me of our time we lived in Mertzon, Texas. Dad worked for the railroad and he had built a house for us there. It was across the street from the school house. It also served as a cafe, which Mother ran. It was called the "Squeeze Inn Cafe." We mostly catered to the school kids.

This was about 1936-1941. We had no gas for cooking; we used wood. We kids would play on the woodpile most of the time.We would make all kinds of things (in our minds) on that woodpile. As we were church-oriented, "church" was one of the things we played there.

I came from a very musical family. My brothers, Ross, Tommy, and my sister Mary, have been very active with church music. When we played church, we would stack wood up just right to make a pulpit and even a piano. They always made me the piano player. (No, I can't even play today!) The other kids would sing and preach while I slapped the "woodpile piano!"

One day I asked why I always had to play the piano. Their reply was: "The piano player doesn't sing." If you ever heard me sing, you would know why they said that. Then in 1941 we moved to Clovis. There was no more woodpile and no more piano playing. but we still did go to church.

So I fixed them! I became a preacher. But I found out---that didn't improve my singing any. I do have one thing I like though, and that is---almost every day I wake up with a song on my mind. The same song: it is an "oldie." I wasn't even sure of the name of the song, but part of it stuck in my mind.

What I remembered was this: "We'll understand it better, by and by." I eventually went on line and found it. That is the name of the song. It was written by a man named Charles A. Tendley (1881-1933). Though I have been a preacher for over 50 years, there are a lot of things about God I do not understand. But as the song says: "We will understand it better by and by." God bless!

Access below:  "We'll Understand it Better By and By", sung by Guy Penrod

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HS3zPS6_Rk&feature=youtube_gdata_player

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FOR MIL'S PLACE

BY DR. ALBIN COVINGTON,

CHS CLASS OF '51

Response Writer

Sent from my iPad