With A Song In Her Heart

With A Song In Her Heart

Some people are destined to write.

ON October 3, 1832, a baby girl was born in the home of the pastor of the church in Froderyd, Sweden. She was named Carolina Sandell, but everyone called her Lina. A frail child from an early age, she preferred spending time in her father’s study to playing with the other children outside.

At the age of twelve she was struck by a mysterious illness that left her paralyzed. One Sunday morning when everyone else had gone to church, she asked the Lord to help her get out of bed—and he did! In awe, she dressed herself and walked slowly across the room. She could hardly wait to tell her parents how God had answered her prayer and healed her.

A sensitive and expressive child, Lina started journaling at an early age. As she wrote down her thoughts, she discovered that they often came in poetry, and at the age of sixteen Lina published a small book of her poems.

When she was twenty-six, she left with her father on a trip to Gothenberg that changed her life. What started as a pleasant adventure resulted in tragedy. As they crossed Lake Vattern, the small boat lurched, throwing her father overboard, and before her horrified eyes, he drowned.

The next three years were a time of anguish and soul-searching for Lina. The only thing that brought her comfort was the writing of hymns that seemed to flow from her broken heart. Within a year of her father’s death, fourteen of her hymns were published anonymously in the Christian periodical Budbararen. Those first fourteen remained the most popular of the 650 hymns she went on to write. Among the initial fourteen were “Children of the Heavenly Father” and “Day by Day.”

At the age of thirty-five, Lina married C. O. Berg, a Stockholm merchant, but continued to write hymns under the initials “L. S.” from her maiden name.

Her hymns were set to music by Oskar Ahnfelt, a former member of the Royal Opera who became known as the “Swedish troubadour.” In a time of revival led by lay preacher Carl Rosenius, who also wrote hymns, Anhfelt traveled throughout Sweden singing Lina’s songs, accompanying himself on his ten-stringed guitar. Lina once said, “Ahnfelt has sung my songs into the hearts of the people.”

The other person who helped to make Lina’s hymns known was Jenny Lind, the “Swedish Nightingale.” Considered to be the greatest soprano of her day, Lind was a committed Christian who loved Rosenius’s preaching and Ahnfelt’s singing. Lind provided the funds for printing the first edition of Ahnfelt’s Songs, which consisted primarily of the hymns of Lina Sandell and Carl Rosenius.

Jenny Lind not only was responsible for getting Lina’s hymns into print but also popularizing them by singing them at many revival meetings. After giving up her operatic career, Jenny Lind’s testimony to the Lord was largely known through her singing of Lina’s hymns.

Lina died at the age of seventy-one. At her funeral the choir sang “Children of the Heavenly Father,” and the congregation spontaneously joined in singing the beloved and familiar hymn:

Children of the heavenly Father

Safely in his bosom gather;

Nestling bird nor star in heaven

Such a refuge e’er was given.

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.

For many the emotional tug of those beautiful words continues to this day.

Reflection

Do you have a favorite hymn? What makes it special to you? Is it the words or a memory you associate with it? All too often we pay little attention to the words of our favorite hymns. Identify your favorite hymn, and carefully think through the words, line by line. Let it be God’s message to you today.

I think how much you have helped me; I sing for joy in the shadow of your protecting wings.

Psalm 63:7