"Day by Day"

Although or because it's a difficult pain day here with anxiety over this afternoon's medical appointment tapping at my heart's door, the Lord brought this hymn to mind early this morning. It challenges and invites me to entrust myself and my loved ones day by day, moment by moment, to Him. I associate it with my maternal grandmother, so it may also have been one of the hymns she used to play.

Day by day, and with each passing moment,
Strength I find to meet my trials here;
Trusting in my Father’s wise bestowment,
I’ve no cause for worry or for fear.
He, whose heart is kind beyond all measure,
Gives unto each day what He deems best,
Lovingly its part of pain and pleasure,
Mingling toil with peace and rest.

Every day the Lord Himself is near me,
With a special mercy for each hour;
All my cares He fain would bear and cheer me,
He whose name is Counsellor and Pow’r.
The protection of His child and treasure
Is a charge that on Himself He laid;
“As thy days, thy strength shall be in measure,”
This the pledge to me He made.

Help me then, in every tribulation,
So to trust Thy promises, O Lord,
That I lose not faith’s sweet consolation,
Offered me within Thy holy Word.
Help me, Lord, when toil and trouble meeting,
E’er to take, as from a father’s hand,
One by one, the days, the moments fleeting,
Till with Christ the Lord I stand.

~Carolina Sandell Berg (1832-1903), trans. A. L. Skoog

Lest the reader think Mrs. Berg knew nothing of real suffering to have written such words, such is not the case. Her father fell overboard and drowned before her eyes when she was 26. By God's grace, after that tragedy hymns overflowed from her heart and pen. Her name is largely unfamiliar to American believers, but she is as beloved in Sweden as Fanny Crosby is in the States.

Even in the hard, crumbles, our Father is good and loves His children. Especially in the hard, perhaps. May the Lord give us, also, songs in the dark nights of our souls.