Safe In The Arms Of Jesus
Blog post description.
FEATUREDDEVOTIONS
Safe In The Arms Of Jesus
The world is a hard place when we suffer loss. We’ve all been through it, some more than most. It’s surprising to learn that no one escapes the grief we experience when we lose a loved one. The hardest pain that anyone can ever endure is in burying their own child.
Fanny Crosby knew her share of trials. She was blinded at an early age and made her way through a sightless life by writing hymns. She excelled at it and became the most prolific hymn-writer the world would ever know. What many never knew is that Fanny lost her infant child in her first year of marriage.
She never talked about it with her friends and only spoke of it once, in a brief comment. She had the idea of a hymn about her child but hadn’t found the right tune to match those words.
Not until William Doan came along, that is. One April day, in 1868, Mr. Doan arrived at Fanny’s home with only 40 minutes to spare and a special task for the hymn writer. He had a tune and needed some lyrics. He shared his tune with Fanny and asked, “What does it say?”
Fanny didn’t hesitate. She knew immediately what that hymn was saying. She said, “It says ‘Safe In The Arms Of Jesus.’” Fanny quickly completed her lyrics and Mr. Doan was able to make it to his train. He was heading to a Sunday School Convention in Cincinnati and he was carrying a brand new hymn that would bring more comfort to grieving mothers than any other over the next century and a half.
Safe In The Arms Of Jesus was not Fanny Crosby’s most famous hymn but it was her tribute to her own heavenly child; a blessing to all mother’s who have dealt with such a loss.
