Using Hymn Study Through Difficult Times

This post is more of a personal reflection than a practical how-to, but I hope it inspires you to keep consistent with hymn study in your Charlotte Mason homeschool!

All the way my Savior leads me
What have I to ask beside?
Can I doubt His tender mercies?
Who through life has been my guide
Heavenly peace, divinest comfort
Ere by faith in Him to dwell
For I know whate’er befall me
Jesus doeth all things well

~All the Way My Savior Leads Me by Fanny Crosby

This hymn was a huge comfort to me during the time when our foster baby was hospitalized for high-risk pneumonia, at age seven months. During that time, I was feeling alone, lost, and afraid: he had already been given treatment for a week, and when our doctor came, instead of telling me we would be discharged soon, he said that our baby did not respond to the treatments and he was referring us to a specialist. And when the specialist came, she said that if things didn’t improve, we would have to move him to ICU.  

Perhaps illness is one experience in life when we most seek peace, comfort, and strength. More than the physical exhaustion, the fear was what was draining my energy, plus the stress of nebulizing a baby who would cry all the way through it. But do you know what I discovered? If I sang while nebulizing, he would calm down and just listen to the music! 

So I would sing this hymn, among a few others. And as I sang, the words themselves would minister to me: do I need strength for this trial? Jesus gives me strength. My soul was thirsting—here is a spring of joy gushing from the rock! And though I may be fearful, I can always turn my eyes to Him and say, “For I know, whate’er befall me, Jesus doeth all things well.”  

And then, a year or so later, when I researched into the biography of the hymn writer, look what I found:

Francis Jane Crosby, known as Fanny, was only able to see for the first six weeks of her life. When she was about two months old, she became sick, and a quack doctor prescribed hot mustard poultices to be applied to her eyes. Although she got well from her illness, she became blind from the wrong treatment to her eyes. 

After a few months, her father died, and with her mother needing to work, Fanny’s Christian grandmother raised her.

When she was eight years old, she wrote her very first verse, a strong indication of her wisdom beyond her years regarding her blindness: 

Oh, what a happy soul I am,
although I cannot see!
I am resolved that in this world
Contented I will be.

How many blessings I enjoy
That other people don’t,
To weep and sigh because I’m blind
I cannot, and I won’t!

Later in life, a well-meaning preacher remarked, “I think it is a great pity that the Master did not give you sight when he showered so many other gifts upon you,” her response was, “Do you know that if at birth I had been able to make one petition, it would have been that I was born blind? Because when I get to heaven, the first face that shall ever gladden my sight will be that of my Savior.” 

And this blind woman has written more than 9,000 hymns! In fact, because of the sheer number of hymns she wrote, she decided to use pen names so that the hymnals won’t be filled with her name above everyone else’s! 

Paraphrased from ChristianityToday.com

I couldn’t help feeling that whatever challenges I could be going through, the hymn writer herself had her share of troubles, too, but she had this anchor to hold on to.

I hope this blesses you, Momma!