Happy New Year! Posting this in hopes that people might have time to check it out for any possible New Years performances. I'm always a tich later than some of you may prefer since i'm typically writting for my choir which usually performes near the end of each month. The more I worked with this song, the more meaningful it has become to me. I especially wanted to drive home the concept of the appearance of the Savior in the last verse and the repeat of some of the initial verse seemed appropriate to re-emphasize the message. I debated much about whether to put in "Till the Master appear" or "Till our Master appears". The later felt more personal and more of an expectation - whereas the first fell more like a statement. This third verse in the song can be a very personal moment - it's an exhange between ourselves that the Lord. We present to Him all we have done and striven for, and we all hope that in that moment we hear the words "Well and faithfully done". The music was witten to emphasize the excitement, strife, hope and finally that calm release we all hope will be ours someday. 

As usual I love to hear when people enjoy (or even edit if they feel a few minor tweaks suit them better their uses) my music. One performance note: there are some optional voicings at the climax (if you have sopranos with the range to do so) in measure 33. The point here is that you don't want to leave the chord without a 3rd (Bb - but don't want too much of it either), so if you're going to use the smaller (optional) notes, make sure the tenors do the same (the choice is eay for them - not so easy for sopranos) to keep the chord balanced appropriately.