Her name was Annie Cummings. She prayed…a lot. That’s
about it, as far as the details about her and why she chose to stress this spiritual
habit when she said “I Will Pray” in the latter decades of the 19th
Century (about 1875, according to at least one hymnal). Annie is one of the many who are virtually
anonymous among hymn-writers, though their compositions have somehow survived.
What she said was so complete, yet uncomplicated. There’s a pattern to what she
says of this spiritual practice, and something she indicates will translate
from mortal existence to the perpetual hereafter, which makes her subject one
that the believer cannot ignore. Do you pray as much as Annie apparently did?
Annie Cummings is unknown, but she must have been
praying for many of the same reasons that you or I might today, close to 150
years removed from her era in the last quarter-century of the 1800s. She evidently
felt she wanted or needed to talk to our Creator multiple times daily –
morning, mid-day, and evening. What would spur a God-believer to do so? Any
number of issues might make a person feel that prayer has to be as constant as
possible. Health is probably number one, right? How’s it feel when mortal
existence is no longer taken for granted? The body breaks down, we all know,
but that reality doesn’t make my body’s troubles any more endurable. To put it bluntly,
it’s not fun feeling like a lab rat in a hospital, even if I know the medical
folks are trying their best to evaluate my health precisely and diagnose a
solution. It’s just that oftentimes that medicine tastes awful! Was this Annie’s
situation – a personal health challenge, for herself or someone close? There
are many other causes that could drive me to my knees, too. Finances, relationships,
work…how many more can set to flowing the mental imagery, either ongoing, in
one’s past, or anticipated in the future? That’s what Annie might have been
driving at with her first three verses, as a believer manages life daily as the
sun rises in the sky, beats over us at noon while we make a living and go about
the routines of life, and then sets to mark our day’s end. But, Annie didn’t stop there. She causes us to
consider, if He has us praying here and now, is that a habit that He wants to
stop? Will I pray in eternity, too (verse 4)?
If it’s a spiritual habit today, this talking and
sharing with God, drawing near to Him, why would I want it to stop when I die?
Was ‘life’s glad morning’ (v.4) far off for Annie? Or, rather for someone she
knew? ‘Pray unceasingly’, He says. And, when I know others are interceding for
me, I also find that this praying draws me closer to others here, who share
what I’m experiencing, who will be where I’m heading. He’s there, and so will
these fellow prayer-travelers, us who urge each other forward and upward with
our mutual entreaties each day. Annie was probably on to something, don’t you
think?
See the
following two websites for mention of the composer, but which lack any
biographical information on her:
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