His the Loving Purpose Solely

Revisiting the entry I posted yesterday has caused me to reflect on another hymn that has been meaningful to me at a few different times in my life.

A Swedish poet and hymn writer named Lina Sandell Berg is credited, according to a very cursory Internet search, with writing at least 650 hymns. (My first thought? Oh, so she’s a Swedish Fanny Crosby. And sure enough, the next several sites I visited referred to her by that nickname.) I am apparently familiar with very few of them, but dearly love one translated into the song we know as "Children of the Heav’nly Father."

I didn't really grow up with that song. I think it may have been used some in the Southern Baptist churches we attended in my early childhood, but it was not used in the independent Baptist church that I was in from fourth grade until I left home.

I first became truly aware of the song, then, toward the end of my high school career. The top choir at my high school had several joint performances with our orchestra that year, and I learned that it was a tradition for them to perform "Children of the Heav’nly Father" at the conclusion of every concert. The combination of the simple, lovely folk tune and the moving lyrics captured me at once.

I think that because of the inclusion of the word "children" in the title, the song perhaps gets relegated to a children's song, and I think that over the years of college, grad school, and early marriage, I only heard it a scant handful of times. But when I became an expectant mother, the song became a part of my life.

I'm sure many of us decide to try little experiments that we hope will have an impact on our unborn children. In my case, I decided I would pick one hymn to sing to my belly in hopes that that song would provide a calming influence on the baby after he joined the outside world. The song I picked for my first-born was “Children of the Heav’nly Father.”

Children of the heav’nly Father


Safely in His bosom gather;


Nestling bird nor star in Heaven


Such a refuge e’er was given.

As a young mother, I was also touched by the parental image of the second verse:

God His own doth tend and nourish;

In His holy courts they flourish;

From all evil things He spares them;


In His mighty arms He bears them.

I continued to sing the song around the house as our family grew. (And yes, I did think my oldest responded to that song when he was an infant, but we obviously can’t prove these things.) It never seemed to become anyone’s favorite but mine, but it continued to be a moving song for me.

When I was about 5 weeks away from delivering my fourth child, my sister announced that she was at last pregnant with their long-hoped-for second child. Unhappily, things did not go according to plan, and her little daughter was born prematurely and died from post-operative infection 2 ½ weeks after her birth. When my husband, infant son, and I went out for the baby’s funeral, most of the arrangements had been taken care of. One of the few details was to find a song for the music minister to sing at the graveside service. A few titles had been suggested, but they weren’t seeming quite right to her. I believe the Lord brought this song to mind. She looked it up, and after a few seconds’ thought, decided upon it. The next two verses are particularly poignant given the circumstances:

Neither life nor death shall ever


From the Lord His children sever;


Unto them His grace He showeth,


And their sorrows all He knoweth.

Though He giveth or He taketh,


God His children ne’er forsaketh;


His the loving purpose solely


To preserve them pure and holy.

And thus this hymn, which I came to love because of its sweet, almost maternal nature, has become bound in my heart with feelings of love and sorrow and hope and trust, feelings I still experience whenever I sing it. May I have the faith to always believe His promise to never leave us nor forsake us and trust His work in preserving and sanctifying us.