Sunday's Hymn: William Cowper

Last Sunday I posted a little bit of the story of William Cowper’s conversion as background for his hymn There Is a Fountain Filled with Blood. I’d like to be able to tell you that his conversion immediately solved all his problems, but it wasn’t so. Cowper continued to suffer bouts of mental illness throughout his life, and his conversion didn’t keep him from attempting suicide again, either. He’d come from a family with mental illness in it’s history, but beyond that, he’d been a sensitive child who had suffered greatly in his younger years. Little William’s mother died when he was six, and his father almost immediately shipped him off to boarding school, where he was, by his own account, treated cruelly. 

The assurance of his own salvation that he had at his conversion, when he saw “my pardon sealed in His blood,” did not continue without interruption. For long periods he would become convinced that ultimately he would be what he called a “castaway”; that is, in the end, Christ would say to him, “I never knew you.” These were the compulsive thoughts, I think, of a sick mind. After all, he truly believed that all those who trusted in Christ were surely saved, and that he, indeed, trusted in Christ. Yet he couldn’t rid himself of the idea that he was the one and only exception to the rule, the only person who ever lived who would trust in Christ and still be rejected.

There’s no big happy ending to his story either. His very last words, in response to an offer of refreshment from the woman caring for him, were “What can it signify?” To say the least, it makes his story a puzzle for us.  His life is not a tale of triumph over adversity.

I knew someone who thought it was a mistake for the church to continue singing Cowper’s hymns, since, as they explained, he’d rejected Christ. I don’t think there’s really any evidence that he rejected Christ, just that he didn’t find the long term peace in Christ that we’ve come to expect from conversion. But what do we make of his hopelessness in the end? There are no easy answers to the questions raised for us by Cowper’s life .

I don’t know about you, but in a strange way, I find Cowper’s story full of hope. Here is a miserable man from whom we have received wonderful poetry and some of our most uplifting hymns. The products of his tormented mind bring hope and peace to mine. John Piper says the fact that so many people find encouragement in Cowper’s story should teach us that when we want to encourage others, we “must not limit ourselves to success stories.”¹

In the end, Cowper’s life is proof of the truth of one of his own hymns.

God Moves in a Mysterious Way 

God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform;
He plants His footsteps in the sea
And rides upon the storm.

Deep in unfathomable mines
Of never failing skill
He treasures up His bright designs
And works His sovereign will.

Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take;
The clouds ye so much dread
Are big with mercy and shall break
In blessings on your head.

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
But trust Him for His grace;
Behind a frowning providence
He hides a smiling face.

His purposes will ripen fast,
Unfolding every hour;
The bud may have a bitter taste,
But sweet will be the flower.

Blind unbelief is sure to err
And scan His work in vain;
God is His own interpreter,
And He will make it plain.

The clouds of  Cowper’s hopelessness are big with blessings for us, and someday the puzzle of his life will be made plain when God interprets it for us.

¹ The Hidden Smile of God, John Piper, page 116.

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Other hymns, worship songs, etc. posted today:

• The Collect for the Third Sunday after Easter at Magic Statistics. 
• The King of Love My Shepherd Is at IMD 2.0.
• A Debtor to Mercy Alone at John Dekker’s Journal
• Out of the Depths at The Happy Wonderer
• Take My Life and Let it Be at Seasonings of the Heart
• The Family of God at joythruChrist.
• The Church’s One Foundation at Chez Kneel
  

Have you posted a hymn this Sunday and I missed it? Let me know by leaving a link in the comments or by emailing me at the address in the sidebar, and I’ll add your post to the list.

Update on Sunday, April 29, 2007 at 5:44PM by rebecca

• In My Heart There Rings a Melody at Above the Clouds

Saturday's Old Photo

I mentioned earlier this week that I’d had a couple of interesting visitors to my old blog. Yes, this week I received  emails from a couple of previously unknown (to me) cousins, Cliff and Ken Melvin, who happened across the photo of my grandfather’s family that I posted back in January. Cliff Melvin is the son of my grandpa’s sister Virgie, who is sitting down in front next to her brother George.

 
Here’s what I wrote about the photo back when I first posted it: 

My grandpa, Ira Deckard, is on the far right, next to his mother, Mary Hepsibeth Deckard … and then his father, John Wesley Deckard. The rest of the group are my grandpa’s sisters and brother: Virgie and George in the front, with Effie, Ethel and Rosie in the back. I’m guessing, by the age my grandpa looks, that this photo was taken sometime in the 1930s. The family is standing in front of my great-grandparent’s home in rural Missouri.

 I learned a little more about the photo from Ken Melvin:

The picture was taken in Grovesprings, MO - early 50s?- shortly before your great grand father died. John Wesley was known as Bud and his wife as Hep.

I was wrong about the date of the photo, then. That means that not only was this picture taken taken shortly before my great grandfather died, it was taken only a few years before my grandpa Ira passed away in 1955. Bud and Hep, they were. I’m glad to know that, too.

The photo on the left is of my grandpa Ira Deckard alone. My mother’s label on the back says she thinks this was also snapped in Missouri. He was, I think, quite a bit younger in this photo than he was in the photo above. If you click for the larger view, you’ll see that Grandpa Ira is wearing long johns under his overalls, and that he has the same piano fingers that my mother inherited and passed down to my oldest daughter and my youngest son. Do you suppose any long lost cousins have piano fingers, too? 

One of the bonuses of blogging: You never know what you’ll learn or who you’ll meet. 

Update on Thursday, May 3, 2007 at 8:29AM by rebecca

A little more information from Ken Melvin:  The year is more likely 1946 or 1947, and the one my mother identified as Effie is really Lena.

A Meme for Me

(Did you ever notice how narcissistic the word meme looks?)

I’ve been tagged by Carla (who seems to read just about the same number of novels that I do) for a book character meme. I read lots of novels as a child and on into young adulthood. Then I had to quit, because once I started a novel, I felt compelled to read it until I finished it. Straight through, that is, without breaks. You can imagine what kind of a mother I was while I was reading a novel. 

True story: One day I found myself sitting on a rocker that I’d pulled into the kitchen next to the fridge so I could reach over without looking up from my page, open the fridge door, grab a snack, and toss it at whatever child needed my attention. That’s when I realised that I needed to give up novels while my children were young. Once I got out of the habit of reading novels, I just never went back to them.

I did read a lot of novels to my children, so if my choices of book characters seem childish to you, now you know why. 

Name three characters (from books)…

1). You wish were real so you could meet them.

• The mom in Little House on the Prairie. Okay, she was real, but I would like to meet her, so I could ask her how she did what she did.
  
• Aslan from The Chronicles of Narnia.  Who wouldn’t want to meet him?
  
• Eeyore.  I’d like to see if I could get him to crack a smile.
  

2). You would like to be.

• When I was a girl, I wanted to be just like Caddie Woodlawn.
  
• Tigger.  It’d be fun to enjoy life moment to moment like Tigger does, although I’m not sure I’d want to be Tigger permanently.
• I’m coming up short here. If I think of anyone else, I’ll come back.
  

3). Who scare you.

• Injun Joe from Tom Sawyer.
• When I was a little girl I was terrified of the wicked witch from The Wizard of Oz. The movie, not the book. I couldn’t bear to read the book if she’s in it, and I’ve never watched the movie again and never will.
• I’m going to have to come back later for this one, too.

If you want to be tagged, let me know. I’m coming in on the tail end of this meme, so I’m not sure who’s done it already and who hasn’t.