I Am Praying

Heather Allington

Heather writes for Sunday Song Book on behalf of the The Salvation Army Oshawa. As a lifelong member of the Army, she has loved these familiar - and some less familiar - songs for many years, and enjoys researching and writing about their origins. She is a wife, mother, grandmother and retired elementary school teacher who likes trying her hand at watercolour painting and poetry writing.

I am praying, blessèd Saviour,
To be more and more like Thee;
I am praying that Thy Spirit
Like a dove may rest on me.

CHORUS:
Thou who knowest all my weakness,
Thou who knowest all my care,
While I plead each precious promise,
Hear, oh, hear and answer prayer!

I am praying to be humbled
By the power of grace divine;
To be clothed upon with meekness
And to have no will but Thine.

I am praying, blessèd Saviour,
And my constant prayer shall be
For a perfect consecration
That shall make me more like Thee.

Another heart-searching devotional hymn by the prolific Fanny Crosby! As most readers know, Ms Crosby was blind from infancy as the result of a wrongly-treated infection, but it would appear that this only deepened her trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. She received her education at the New York Institution for the Blind, eventually becoming a teacher there. In 1858 Fanny married Alexander Van Alstine who was a fellow teacher – a music instructor. Sadly, their only child died as a baby, and the marriage did not last. Perhaps these hardships, too, contributed to Fanny’s deep devotion to her Saviour.

Fanny Crosby had begun writing poems at the age of eight, and her first book, The Blind Girl and Other Poems was published in 1844, when she was 24 years old. She continued her writing until she had given the world about 9000 hymns, with tunes by various composers. Sometimes the tune would be written first, and appropriate words would suggest themselves – or be given by the Lord – to Fanny. She always composed the lyrics in her mind and dictated them to someone else. How she would have loved the use of today’s technology for her writing! May we echo her prayer to be more like Jesus.