Reprint and updated from 10/15/2010
I have a cousin who just passed away last night after a long battle with cancer. Marsha’s mom was my maternal grandmother’s sister – Grace West. Marsha is closer in age to my mom, yet I have this fond memory of her coming out of her home as a young lady and the smile she had when she saw us in the car. Seems like she played the accordion, and probably the piano, but she had a beautiful singing voice that I can remember.
She wrote a song and it was published in one of our church songbooks. It is called, “Tell Me How Much I Owe…“
Like a lamb to the slaughter,
like a sheep before his shearers;
From the manger to the grave like a beggar just a slave.
Born in poverty, died in cruelty, suffered agony just for you and me.
Tell me how much I owe, I want to repay.
If the hills could cry out
and the rocks could proclaim
and the mountains could sing their glad refrain,
they’d say “Tell it, declare it, go sing it and share it;
Sacrifice, there’s no price too great to pay.”
Chorus:
Oh, Calvary, oh Calvary, would you please, please speak to me.
Tell me how much I owe, I want to repay.
Then an echo rings clear from the hills of old Judea
Tell the lost, tell the lost, tell the lost.
Goodbye, Marsha.