There Was An Old Lady With A Lifetime of Worry

There was an old lady who swallowed a pew

She didn’t know why she swallowed the pew 

She had so many worries, she didn’t know what to do

There was an old lady who swallowed some hymns

She was peaceful again when she swallowed the hymns

She swallowed the hymns that were stacked in her pew

She didn’t know why she swallowed the pew

With all those worries—“it was the right thing to do”

There was an old lady who swallowed a church

It was always beneficial to swallow a church

(and just what she needed to get out of her lurch)

She swallowed the church to cover her worries 

And did it to applause from the eldership juries

She didn’t know why she swallowed the hymns

Something wasn’t setting just right. Would they come up again?

There was an old lady who swallowed communion

Wanting some unknown reunion, 

she swallowed communion.

There was an old lady who swallowed an alter

She knew she could never falter 

if she could just swallow an alter

She swallowed the alter to go with communion,

She swallowed communion because it goes best with church

She swallowed the church to have a place for the pew

She didn’t know why she swallowed the pew—

just worry, over worry, is all she knew to do

There was an old lady who swallowed church membership

She could almost skip after she swallowed church membership

There was an old lady who swallowed fancy clothes

Boy, then she’d be worthy if she could just swallow those

She swallowed her clothes to secure her church membership

She swallowed her membership so she could go to the alter

She knew she’d never falter if she could swallowed the alter

She swallowed the alter to go to communion

She swallowed communion because you do it at church

She swallowed the hymns and before it the pew 

because her worries inside were eating her through

There was an old lady who leaned up for a wafer

She didn’t know Jesus—She’d save that for later

There was an old lady who swallowed her sin

she went through it once, and wasn’t going there again

So she swallowed the sin which sank into the wafer 

at an alter where she decided to accept Jesus later

Her “later” went on for a decade or two

Until on a death bed, she knew not “what on earth” to do

There was an old lady who lay in her bed 

Her heart was anxious about dying—about “dead”  

She knew, sick as she was, what she needed to do

If she could just visit that old alter and sing a hymn or two

Carrying a lifetime of worry, just forced her to bawl 

And there at her bedside out came pew—wafer and all 

So she knelt at the alter and asked God to come near

He really did it, because—her voice—He could hear!

She told Him her sin and when she was done

She asked God to help her, told Him, He was ‘the One”

God took to her side—and eternally speaking—

She got a present that day despite her lifetime of reaping

Off she was called, and to heaven was led

where her face shown of Love, and her dread—put to bed