Decades ago when I was a teenager the chorus "Safe Am I' was a favorite for both teens and adults. Typically it was sung in youth gatherings and in prayer meetings. But over the years there was a change in music styles and today most church attenders have never heard this chorus.
And times have changed and life is not as safe physically as it used to be. We've battled with covid and many of our friends have died. The use of guns has become epidemic. In the four cities within 50 miles of our home, shootings are a daily occurrence. And then there has been an increase in major destructive storms, fires, earthquakes and terrorism. We don't know what a day will bring. Are we really safe?
But there is also an increase in spiritual attacks. But believers can rest in the truth of Romans 8:38-39. "For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
Mildred Dillon and her husband Bill were gospel musicians, serving the Lord with a church in Fort Wayne, Indiana. One night at choir practice, each person in attendance was asked to recite a recently memorized Scripture verse. Mildred, the group's pianist, forgot hers, and quickly thumbed through her Bible to find another. Her eyes fell on Psalm 91:11, which she personalized in reading it: "He shall give His angels charge over [me], to keep [me] in all [my] ways."
That promise was soon put to the test. A powerful storm was picking up outside, rattling the windows of the church. Then, suddenly, a tornado struck the building, including its fifty-foot chimney, and eighteen tons of brick crashed through the roof and fell on Mildred at the piano. It took a dozen men half an hour to free her.
She was rushed to the hospital. Covered with cuts and bruises, her back broken, for a time doctors didn't expect her to survive, but by God's grace she did. And it was during her over two months in the hospital in 1937 that Mildred Dillon wrote the words for a chorus. In all, fewer than fifty words long, it begins:
Safe am I, safe am I,
In the hollow of His hand.
Sheltered o'er, sheltered o'er
With His love for evermore.
She had words, but no tune. Then, a year later, she and Bill embarked on the Ile de France for England, engaged to assist, with their music, pastor, evangelist and hymn writer Paul Rader, in a series of meetings. In mid-Atlantic the ship was struck by a violent storm. As the waves pitched the ship, Mildred was knocked down.
Though not injured, she was filled with fear, but the Lord brought peace to her soul as she thought of her experience the previous year, and the verse, Psalm 91:11, and the words she'd composed in the hospital. "I'm still safe in the hollow of Your hand," she thought. Later she went to a piano on board, and composed the tune.
Over the years since 1938 the Dillons received around fifteen hundred letters, expressing appreciation for the little song, telling of ways it has blessed others. Now, both Bill and Mildred are safe at home with the Lord in heaven.
What a thrill to know that God's children are safe in the hollow of His hand. And we know that no matter what may come our way that He keeps us and we are safe in His care.
Friend are you facing some storm today? Sing this chorus and rest in God's care, protection and provision. There is true safety.
Safe am I, Safe am I,
In the hollow of His hand;
Sheltered o'er, sheltered o'er
With His love forever more
No ill can harm me, No foe alarm me,
For He keeps both day and night,
Safe am I, Safe am I,
In the hollow of His hand.
Listen to the chorus here. SAFE
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