Annie Johnson Flint (1866 – 1932)

Readings for today (adapted from here):
Genesis 15:1-23
Psalm 27
Philippians 3:17-4:1
Luke 9:27-36

Check this link out as well: http://www.catholic.org/clife/lent/story.php?id=67441

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What is the secret behind the popularity of the poems of Annie Johnson Flint?

The answer lay in the fact that here is one who wrote from her heart; one who endured, heroically and triumphantly, throughout a long life of suffering and pain. She demonstrated to the world how God could be glorified in the midst of physical trials and tribulations few of us are called upon to bear. It is of the simple things of life that Annie writes. And yet, it is the simple things that are often the most profound.

These she expresses by words that enchant the ear, delight the heart, and minister comfort to the soul. Buffeted by the perplexities and the sorrows of life few others are called upon to bear, Miss Flint wrote out of the depths of her own experience. She lived the realities she proclaimed through verse.

Born in Vineland, N.J., her father was from Vermont, and her mother, Scotland. But her parents died before she reached the age of six, so she and a younger sister were adopted by a childless couple who lived until Miss Flint was twenty-three. She was about fourteen when the family moved to a town near Camden.

Here, as a young girl, she enjoyed two years in the public schools, followed by one year in the school at Trenton, and three years of teaching. But it was at this time that arthritis first laid its cruel touch upon her, strengthening its grip so rapidly that in less than five years she was unable to walk.

Hearing cures were possible at the Sanitarium at Clifton Springs, New York, she went there, but the disease proved to be far too advanced for help. However, because of the large numbers of ministers, missionaries, and teachers that visited the resort, she found the spiritual atmosphere of the place extremely satisfying and stimulating. So she decided to make Clifton Springs her home, and remained living there till the time of her death.

At only nine years of age it was discovered that she could put words together in rhythm and rhyme. Her first poem was descriptive of frost pictures on the windowpane. Realizing that she possessed the power of painting the beauty of nature in words gave her such a thrill of awe and delight. From that time forward, everything around her went into rhyme - lessons, school incidents; all sorts of happenings, both real and imaginary. From the beginning. “verse-making was so easy and so pleasant to do that it had never seemed a work or a duty. It appeared so small a thing that I held it of no importance. I was like the Syrian General who would not have shrunk from doing some great or difficult task, but despised the seven dippings in the Jordan.”

Before she was twelve years old she was setting poems to music. Her talent seemed to be musical, and she had hopes of becoming a composer and concert pianist. But this dream was abandoned when she became unable to play. According to His mercy, she was shut in to just one mode of expression: that of poetry. Not willing to accept this to be a restriction, as the years passed, it became more and more, an absorbing occupation, as well as a solace and a delight.

Many a year had gone by before she ceased to regard her poems merely as a compensation for the loss of her music, and came to see them as the work and the ministry to which God was calling her. There is an old legend that the nightingale sings best with its breast against the thorn; and it was so with Miss Flint. The crucible of her suffering became the vehicle through which her verse was brought into full bloom.

A great number of Miss Flint's poems were written about God's great outdoors, from which she was shut off almost entirely all her life. But her radiant faith lent wings to her imagination. She sang many a song of praise, not only for the things bright and beautiful, but for all that had come from the hand of the Lord she loved. The seven volumes of her poems issued by Evangelical Publishers are bubbling over with the joy of life; with praise and thanksgiving for all created things, and the love of God that was made manifest to this world through His Son.

Something of Miss Flint's trials and suffering are told in Dr. Bingham's story of her life, “The Making of the Beautiful.” And though it was for more than forty years that she quite literally “endured as seeing Him who is invisible,” there is not a trace of self-pity or despondency, no moaning over the fate that was hers to bear, no railing against the Will of God, nor any questioning of Him Whom she was convinced does all things well.

It may be that Miss Flint's poems will never qualify for a place in the niche of fame or be found among the ranks of the immortals. But, then, she did not strive for that. Instead, she wrote for the common people of the world; men and women who face life with its burdens and its difficulties. Those who search through the rain and dark shadows, to perceive that promised rainbow, just beyond the clouds: The one encircling the throne.

God hath not promised skies always blue,
Flower strewn pathways all our lives through;
God hath not promised sun without rain,
Joy without sorrow, peace without pain.
God hath not promised we shall not know
Toil and temptation, trouble and woe;
He hath not told us we shall not bear
Many a burden, many a care.

God hath not promised smooth roads and wide,
Swift, easy travel, needing no guide;
Never a mountain rocky and steep,
Never a river turbid and deep.
Refrain: But God hath promised strength for the day,
Rest for the labor, light for the way,
Grace for the trials, help from above,
Unfailing sympathy, undying love.


He Giveth more Grace

He giveth more grace when the burdens grow greater,
He sendeth more strength when the labours increase;
To added affliction He addeth His mercy;
To multiplied trials, His multiplied peace.

When we have exhausted our store of endurance,
When our strength has failed ere the day is half done,
When we reach the end of our hoarded resources,
Our Father's full giving is only begun.

Fear not that thy need shall exceed His provision,
Our God ever yearns His resources to share;
Lean hard on the arm everlasting, availing;
The Father both thee and thy load will upbear.
His love has no limit; His grace has no measure.
His pow'r has no boundary known unto men;
For out of His infinite riches in Jesus, He giveth, and giveth, and giveth again!