The Lord has oftened used the sufferings and difficult experiences of his children to encourage others, often through the music which they compose. Such was the case with Anne Steele (1717-1778), the daughter of a Baptist preacher and timber merchant, William Steele.
Steele faced many challenges. She lost her mother at age 3, a potential suitor who drowned at age 20, her step mom at 43 and her sister-in-law at 45. She spent many years caring for her father until his death in 1769. She suffered a severe hip injury. For most of her life she also exhibited symptoms of malaria, including persistent pain, fever, headaches and stomach aches. She was bed ridden for some years before her death.
Out of her suffering, she began writing devotional material and her ministry along side her dad to his congregation blossomed. In her mid-forties, she submitted her. Poems on Subjects Chiefly Devotional for publication. Of this work her father said "I pray God to make it useful and keep her humble."
So many of his poems were converted to hymns that Anne is remembered as one of the foremost women hymnists of the eighteenth century.
This week's hymn choice is an interesting prayer of hers. She asks for a calm and thankful heart and God's presence on her journey here below.
When the hour of her journey's end finally came, she welcomed its arrival, and though her feeble body was excruciated with pain, her mind was perfectly serene. She took the most affectionate leave of her weeping friends around her, and at length, the happy moment of her dismission arising, she closed her eyes, and with these animating words on her dying lips, "I know that my Redeemer liveth," gently fell asleep in Jesus.
3 Let the sweet hope that Thou art mine
The music can be heard here. CALM
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