The A.B.C. game and counting

I have started to train for the Midmar mile. For me, training boils down to swimming one mile per week. (When I asked another swimmer in the dressing room whether she swam often, she replied that she swam 120 minutes every day, because she swam all the open air miles! Every day…!! One hundred and twenty minutes?! No wonder my time for swimming 1 mile is at least minutes slower than hers!)

Anyway, so far this “season” I’ve only trained in the gym swimming pool. As it is only 20 m long, I have to swim 80 lengths. That means I have to COUNT the lengths. The two previous years I meditated on Bible passages in a specific order to help me to count and to while the time away. (Ps 1, 2, 3 etc or Matt 1, Mark 2, Luke 3 etc.)
This year I decided to count 4 sets of 20 lengths and to count with the…. alphabet. During the first 20 lengths I meditate on whatever comes to mind – I believe that the Holy Spirit guides me here:

A : arbeidsaam wees (work diligently), aandag gee (pay attention).
B: bely, (confess), bid (pray) beplan (plan)
C: Be calm, creative, cool
D: doelgerig (goal orientated), dadelik (immediately, i.e. do not procrastinate…) dissipline
E: eerlik (honest)
F: fluks (diligent)
G: Gees vervuld, geduldig, goed,  (filled with Holy Spirit, patience, goodness)
H: hulpvaardig (willing to help)
And so on and so on until I get to the letter T. (I substitute Q for V as there are many more things to meditate on that start with v than with q)

Mostly God tells me to work smarter and to check my temper and to be more helpful.  Invariably when I get to N, I am reminded to be "netjies" (neat) and "natuurlik" (natural) - a bit of a contradiction here or is God telling me that to be neat should be part of my nature?

For the 2nd set of 20 lengths, I pray for family and friends and often people I do not even know e.g. C: the miners in Chile. (My blog friends are also included in my prayer list.) I know lots of special people whose name starts with A: Alta H, Alta M, Alet, Annemarie, Anne F, Anne J etc. etc.
I only know two people and one organisation whose name starts with an I so can pray a little longer for them.  When I come to V (in place of Q)  I pray for an old school acquaintance.  I wonder what has become of her?

For the third set of 20 lengths, I “sing” hymns and other gospel songs:

A: Aan U of God my dankgesange, U wil ek in my aandlied prys
B: Besing die lof van Jesus saam.
C. Christ the Lord is risen today
D. Danklied (Thank you) and so forth.

The first time I tried to “sing” according to the alphabet, there were letters that I could not match to a song. When I got home, I fetched the new song book of our church. I now have more than one song for each letter. (There are no Afrikaans gospel songs that start with F, but there is "Father we adore you..." and my favourite "Our Father who art in heaven". in English.)

I do not know the songs well enough to sing them off by heart, so I checked the words. So sad, that the words of so many hymns that I have known more or less, have changed . What do I do now? Do I check in the old books and use the older, better known words, or do I learn the new words? I am still in the process of looking up songs and have found real gems.

I loved the A.B.C. game when I was little when we all tried to come up with a boy’s name/ a vegetable/ a car/ a flower etc. that started with a specific alphabet letter. I now enjoy this mind game even more than before!  This time because it fills my mind in a positve, healthy way. 

Any suggestions for prayer, meditation or hymns and gospel songs?