I will enter His gates with thanksgiving in my heart

Like the previous two texts, this song is normally repeated. But its mood is more akin to that of 173, which it resembles as a faster and more rhythmic introductory item. Leona von Brethorst’s words from 1976, with their inseparable tune I WILL ENTER HIS GATES, are a blend of lines from Psalm 92:4, Psalm 100:4 and Psalm 118:24. They have proved widely popular, and those with qualms about the body movements which they invite may reflect on how many of the Psalms positively require them. The repeated ‘his’ and ‘he’ are firmly identified by the name of the Lord in line 3; cf also the (single) use of ‘he has made me glad’ by H. Bonar in I heard the voice of Jesus say (1846).

BRETHORST, Leona von, b Smoky Mountains, E Tennessee, USA 1923. One of 11 children raised in poverty, on Sundays in summertime she walked 3 miles to the nearest Full Gospel Ch, the journey being impossible in winter. In the 1940s war years she worked in Detroit and her faith faded; it rekindled when her seriously ill toddler was healed in answer to prayer. But her new-found commitment cost her her marriage. As a single mum doing ‘odd jobs’ she was often depressed, but although not a musician she discovered her gift of composition and wrote several dozen songs, one of which (arising from the loneliness of seeing her children move away) has travelled the world since the mid-1970s. She introduced it to the Calvary Fellowship at Long Beach, California, where she still belongs in retirement. It expresses her firm belief that ‘thanksgiving is the key to experiencing the joy of the Lord’. No.182.