Richard W. Steffen: “This Is My Story, This Is My Song

“ T his Is My Stor y, This Is My Song”

by Richard W. Steffen, Minister of Music

Frances Jane Crosby, or “Fanny” to all of us who love her songs, wrote the lyrics to the hymn: “Blessed Assurance, Jesus Is Mine” in 1873. Blind at a very young age, her words in this hymn’s 2nd stanza are truly profound, for her and for us: “Visions of rapture now burst on my sight.” Fanny (1820–1915) was a lifelong Methodist who began composing hymns at age six. She became a student at the New York Institute of the Blind at age 15 and joined the faculty of the Institute at 22. Fanny wrote the lyrics for more than 8,000 hymns and gospel songs, and she is also known for her teaching and her rescue mission work. She understood the concepts of New Heaven and New Earth when “the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped” (Isaiah 35:5). In stanza 1 she tells us that having this blessed assurance that Jesus is our Lord is a “foretaste of glory divine.” And this was Fanny’s response to that confidence in God’s saving grace: to praise her Savior all the day long. Every day, because “the kingdom of God is at hand” (Mark 1:15 KJV). Here and now.

Sometimes the lyrics of a song come to a writer first, with the tune coming later when the words are shared with musicians. But that is not how this hymn came together. One afternoon Fanny Crosby was visited by her friend Phoebe Knapp. Phoebe and her husband Joseph were members of the John Street Methodist Episcopal Church in New York City. Fanny was also a member of that church, and she had been a longtime friend of Phoebe’s family, Walter C. Palmer and Phoebe Worrall Palmer. Phoebe, using the piano, played a new melody she had just composed. When she asked Fanny, “What does the melody say to you?” Fanny, leaning back in her rocking chair, replied, “Blessed assurance; Jesus is mine.” The hymn appeared in the July 1873 issue of Palmer’s Guide to Holiness and Revival Miscellany, a magazine printed by Dr. and Mrs. Palmer, complete text and piano score.

This hymn, with the title bearing the words of Fanny’s response to her friend, has been one of the most beloved hymns that Fanny wrote. I thank Janet Roberts for giving me an inspirational book from Janet’s library entitled: Blessed

4 Assurance: the Life and Hymns of Fanny J. Crosby by John Loveland (Broadman Press 1978). About “Blessed Assurance,” Broadman says that “whether the words make up a poem that some great poet would judge good, I do not know. And what has made it survive the years, I do not know. But I do feel that it is a testimony that came from the heart of a blind Christian lady more than a hundred years ago, and it is a testimony of every Christian.” And in just 3 years, the hymn will have inspired worshippers for 150 years!

Much of this hymn is focused on heaven, on our arrival to a realm where “perfect submission” and “perfect delight” [stanza 2] will take place. Our existence on earth is one of “watching and waiting, looking above” [stanza 3]. This hymn also appeals to our senses in a rich way, here and now. We have now a “foretaste of glory divine;” we hear now “echoes of mercy, whispers of love” [stanza 2].

As much as I love the essence of this hymn through its poetic phrases, as much as I love playing the 9/8 meter of the music, as much as l love telling “my story” in the form of “my song,” it is the beginning of the 3 rd line of the 1st stanza that truly inspires me: I am – we are – “heir(s) of salvation.” Wow.

We are now beginning the Lenten Season: 40 days prior to Easter (not including Sundays.) The scripture for the 2 nd Sunday of Lent this year includes a loved verse: “For God so beloved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16 NIV). Are we really heir(s) of salvation? Why and how? This verse answers those questions: God loves us and he gave his Son. And that Son showed us whom God is, as he walked, talked, healed, wept, and prayed. He showed us that we can experience the kingdom of God here and now.

This is my story; this is my song. Thanks be to God.