“I Need Thee Every Hour” - Annie Hawks

1835–1918

Annie Hawks was, by her own account, a rather ordinary homemaker from Brooklyn who got a taste of fame through one of the hymn texts she wrote, “I Need Thee Every Hour.” Born in upstate New York, she began writing poetry at age fourteen, getting a piece printed in the local paper. Over the years, she contributed other verses to newspapers, but it was hardly a career. She got married, had kids, and settled in Brooklyn, where she and her husband attended a Baptist church pastored by Robert Lowry. This pastor was also a musician, and he had composed the music for a number of church hymns. When he learned of Annie’s gift for poetry, he suggested she apply herself to hymn writing. If she would supply the words, he would write the music.

This arrangement worked well, as Annie wrote text for hymns such as “All Thine,” “The Cross for Jesus,” and “Why Weepest Thou?” Robert Lowry got these works published, but they found little popularity. Then one balmy June morning, seated by an open window, Annie Hawks put pencil to paper and wrote a new song. “In the midst of the daily cares of my home,” she wrote later, “. . . I was so filled with the sense of nearness to the Master that, wondering how one could live without Him either in joy or pain, these words, ‘I need Thee every hour’ were ushered into my mind, the thought at once taking full possession of me.”

With Robert Lowry’s music, the hymn debuted at an 1872 Sunday school convention in Cincinnati and soon was used regularly in D. L. Moody’s evangelistic services. In Annie’s words, it was “wafted out to the world on the wings of love and joy.” She remained quite humble about her lyrics. “Now when I hear them sung, as I have sometimes by hundreds of voices in chorus, I find it difficult to realize that they were ever, consciously, my own thoughts or penned by my own hand.”

No matter how “ordinary” you are, God can use you to waft his wonders in the world.

God chose things despised by the world, things counted as nothing at all, and used them to bring to nothing what the world considers important.

1 Corinthians 1:28