Behind I Need Thee Every Hour

   The Pandemic Continues,  I was recently reading an article on a survey of the effect this pandemic has had on a lot of our population here in the US. The prevalence of symptoms of anxiety disorder was approximately three times those reported in the second quarter of 2019 (25.5% versus 8.1%), and prevalence of depressive disorder was approximately four times that reported in the second quarter of 2019 (24.3% versus 6.5%) Suicidal ideation was also elevated; approximately twice as many respondents reported serious consideration of suicide.  Also increased substance use, domestic violence and child abuse where also way up. Then we have the rioting in many major cities going on for three months now adding to a lot of stress on people in those areas just trying to carry on normal daily activities.                                                                                                                                                       In an article I wrote a few months ago, “We're All Going To Die”  I was so surprised to see so many people, yes even Christians in a panic, and many still are.  It all comes from a lack of a true belief and trust in our Lord Jesus Christ as our country continues to drift away from Jesus Christ and God.  As Christians and believers in Jesus Christ we have to put aside our fear and put our trust in the lord with a lot of prayer and as Jesus prayed on the night of his betrayal,  “Yet not as I will, but as you will”.          This led me to this hymn and the need to be closer to him more than ever through these trying times.                                                                                                                     Story Behind I Need Thee Every Hour               Liz Tolsma           May 9, 2012                                                                       This hymn's author, Annie Hawks, began writing poetry at the tender age of 14 and she had several published in a newspaper.
    When she was 24, she married and she and her husband joined a church in Brooklyn, New York, whose pastor was the hymn writer Robert Lowry. He recognized Annie's talent and challenged her to use it to write hymns. He told her that if she wrote the words, he would write the music.
    The best way to tell how I Need Thee Every Hour came to be is through Annie's own words. This happened in 1872.
    "I remember well the circumstances under which I wrote the hymn. It was a bright June day, and I became so filled with the sense of the nearness of my Master that I began to wonder how anyone could live without Him, in either joy or pain. Suddenly, the words I need Thee every hour, flashed into my mind, and very quickly the thought had full possession of me.
    Seating myself by the open windows, I caught up my pencil and committed the words to paper - almost as they are today. A few months later Dr. Robert Lowry composed the tune Need, for my hymn and also added the refrain.
    For myself, the hymn, at its writing, was prophetic rather than expressive of my own experiences, for it was wafted out to the world on the wings of love and joy, instead of under the stress of great personal sorrow, with which it has often been associated.
    At first I did not understand why the hymn so greatly touched the throbbing heart of humanity. Years later, however, under the shadow of a great loss, I came to understand something of the comforting power of the words I had been permitted to give out to others in my hours of sweet serenity and peace."