He has made me glad

I will enter his gates with thanksgiving in my heart,

I will enter his courts with praise.

I will say this is the day that the Lord has made,

I will rejoice for He has made me glad.
He made me glad,He made me glad,

I will rejoice forHe has made me glad.

He made me glad,He made me glad,

I will rejoice forHe has made me glad.

Psalm 118:24"This is the day which the Lord hath made;we will rejoice and be glad in it.

Phil Christensen:
When I first heard "He Has Made Me Glad," I was a bus boy pouring coffee for an aging Women's Aglow group. A little blue-haired pianist pumped out a polka beat while those old saints clapped like school girls on each syllable of the chorus.

Though I wasn't yet a believer, I knew these women: some had been widowed or abandoned; others were riddled with cancer; and some were raising their grandchildren. My heart was moved as brittle, battle-worn voices rang with supernatural joy, singing, "He has made me glad! He has made me glad! I will rejoice for He has made me glad!"

Though Leona Von Brethorst's classic praise song overflows with triumph, the composer-much like me-didn't have many obvious reasons to be glad. Born in 1923 in the Smoky Mountains of East Tennessee, Brethorst was raised in abject poverty. "We didn't know we were poor," she says, because "everyone else was like us." She remembers going to school without shoes while she and her sister shared three dresses. She and her ten siblings also shared the arms-length attention of a harsh father.

Cold winters kept them home during most of the year, but in the summer the family walked three miles to a Full Gospel church. The heartfelt praise of Appalachian saints made a deep impression on the young woman; fiddles, guitars and banjos rang through the valley while some clogged before the Lord. "It was tremendous!" Von Brethorst recalls, "They'd really get happy and dance!"

Von Brethorst's childhood faith faded during World War II as she took a job in the defense plants of Detroit. After the war, she married and had her two children.

When her toddler became critically ill with polio-related seizures, she cried out to God in faith, begging, "If You don't let him die, I'll give the rest of my life to You." God did heal the child, and doctors confirmed the miracle. The joy of her renewed faith was soon overshadowed by her husband's distaste for Christianity. He laid down an ultimatum: choose between him and Jesus.
Leona chose Jesus. She never remarried and, as a single mom, battling exhaustion and clinical depression, she worked odd jobs and raised her children to know the Lord.

It was during those years she discovered her gifts as a worship leader. She wrote dozens of praise songs and taught them to her fellowship. "God would give me the melody to every word," she explained. "I don't know a note of music or how to play any instrument!"

"He Has Made Me Glad" sprang not out of the poverty, abandonment or the depression she had experienced, but out of the loneliness of seeing her children grown and moved away. The song was God's way of teaching her that thanksgiving is the key to experiencing the joy of the Lord.
The morning she taught the song to Calvary Fellowship, Von Brethorst says laughter and dancing erupted, lasting for hours. The youth of the church soon took it with them to a summer camp where it began its global journey. Now found in every modern hymnal and songbook - the fourth most Licensed praise song through CCLI (refer to the current CCLI Top 25 Songs list) - "He Has Made Me Glad" provides retirement income for Von Brethorst. Penned in the mid-1970s, it has been recorded in a variety of styles, but most recently, the song was remodeled with a clever, fresh rhumba beat in the 1996 Maranatha! Praise Chorus Book Audio Series.
Pondering the song's enduring popularity, Von Brethorst exclaims, "It's strange! I don't feel different than anyone else singing it. I do feel the Lord has blessed the song because it contains the Bible's pattern for worship. We do enter His gates with thanksgiving, and His courts with praise," she adds. "It's a choice we make."

"I believe worship leaders are as important as senior pastors; you can cause the Word of God to lodge in people's hearts through worship." The secret, she says, is to "stay very close to the Holy Spirit."

Now 74 years old, Brethorst lives in Long Beach, California, still active in her community and at her home church, Calvary Fellowship.
Phil Christensen is the Worship Pastor at Chapel of the Hills Community Church in Sandy, Oregon. http://www.ccli.com/WorshipResources/SongStories.cfm?itemID=8


The Holy Bible: King James Version. 2000.
The Psalms: 100

An Exhortation to Thanksgiving

A Psalm of praise.
1 Make a joyful noise unto the LORD, all ye lands.

2 Serve the LORD with gladness:
come before his presence with singing.

3 Know ye that the LORD he is God:
it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves;
we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.

4 Enter into his gates with thanksgiving,
and into his courts with praise:
be thankful unto him,and bless his name.

5 For the LORD is good;
his mercy is everlasting; 1 Chr. 16.34 · 2 Chr. 5.13 ; 7.3 · Ezra 3.11 · Ps. 106.1 ;
107.1 ; 118.1 ; 136.1 · Jer. 33.11
and his truth endureth to all generations.

Published by The American Bible Society http://www.bartleby.com/108/19/100.html