What
kind of housework must she have been doing to inspire such words? Perhaps
someone, maybe even the minister at the Brooklyn church where she worshipped
who had encouraged her to exercise her poetic gift, asked Annie Sherwood Hawks
this question in the summer of 1872, once her words for “I Need Thee Every
Hour” were made public. They sound like someone who felt that life was empty in
some way, meaningless without the Divine influence. Or was it a gift from the
Holy One, a present that she would not fully comprehend for several years? Annie
might have answered ‘yes’, it was both.
Annie
Hawks evidently had been preparing for some time to write the words that would
come to her on a June day in 1872. This 37-year old housewife and mother of
three children had been writing poetry since her own childhood, and as an adult
was urged to write some more, which her minister Robert Lowry liked to put to
music for the enrichment of the church’s children. It was a beautiful June day,
she remembered, a day like many others in which she was busy with household
duties. Whether she was completely alone, or perhaps with one or more of her
children likely at home as well, Annie was evidently joined by somebody more
unusual – even spiritual. She described a sense of being filled with a
presence, a fullness that made her ponder how life could be complete without
Him. Indeed, if one believes the Creator is the source of life, Annie was
asking something quite logical. As a believer, this train of thought would
certainly not have been completely revolutionary to her, but its intensity and
impact that day were definitely unique. She reportedly sat down and immediately
composed the poem’s five verses, which she gave to Pastor Lowry the following
Sunday. Her senses likely had been heightened, making her an open vessel, a
result probably of her poetic nature that had been nurtured since her teens,
and more recently as a consequence of Lowry’s support. Though her acquaintances at the church would
have undoubtedly appreciated Annie’s song in the weeks after it was first
publicized, Annie herself would not fully value its import until many years later.
She related after her husband died 16 years afterward that her poetry truly
spoke to her in ways that it must have for others in similar circumstances when
she first wrote it. The death’s ‘shadow’ that she described had fallen upon her
was not as dark as it could have been because of the Spirit’s comforting words,
transmitted through her own hands.
Watch
for those mundane moments when you might think you’re alone. One wonders if
Annie retraced her experience at the moment of “I Need Thee’s ...” conception,
and tried to repeat it. She wrote approximately 400 hymns in her lifetime, but
this one crafted whilst in the midst of a seemingly routine summer’s day says
something about God’s creative calculus. Is He deliberately unpredictable,
unfathomable? I’m made in His image, but He’s the model, and I’m merely the copyist.
For some, that might not be enough, but for Annie, she was apparently satisfied
to play her role, to be used by Him in her ordinary day. No flashy,
jaw-dropping light appeared, but for someone whose antennae was ready for reception,
His tap on her shoulder and cohabitation of her spirit crafted a product that
touches us believers still today. A great God doesn’t overwhelm…a submissive heart
just listens to His suggestion. That was Annie.
See more
information on the song discussed above in The Complete Book of Hymns –
Inspiring Stories About 600 Hymns and Praise Songs by William J. Petersen
and Ardythe Petersen, Tyndale House Publishers, 2006. Also, see Amazing Grace: 366 Inspiring
Hymn Stories for Daily Devotions by Kenneth W. Osbeck, Kregel Publications,
1990; 101 More Hymn Stories, Kenneth W. Osbeck, Kregel Publications,
1985; and Then Sings My Soul – 150 of the World’s Greatest Hymn Stories,
Robert J. Morgan, Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2003.
See a brief biography
of composer here: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/h/a/w/hawks_as.htm
