The Hymn That Cost Her Everything

In February 1874, Frances Ridley Havergal arrived at a friend's home for a short visit. She was already an accomplished musician and poet, but that week something shifted in her heart. She looked around the room at the ten people gathered there — some unconverted, others spiritually drifting — and prayed a daring prayer: "Lord, give me all in this house."

Over the following days, every single person in that house came to faith or experienced renewal. Havergal was so overwhelmed by what obedience had unlocked that she could not sleep. In the quiet hours of that last night, she wrote the words that Christians have sung for over a century: "Take my life and let it be, consecrated, Lord, to Thee."

But Havergal did not stop at poetry. She took her own hymn seriously. She gathered her jewelry — pieces she had treasured for years — and sent them to the Church Missionary Society. She gave away musical compositions. She surrendered her most prized possessions because she had sung, "Take my silver and my gold, not a mite would I withhold," and she meant it.

Obedience to the Almighty rarely asks us for everything at once. It starts with a single willing prayer, then another step, then another. Havergal discovered what every faithful follower eventually learns: when we offer God our obedience, He does not waste it. He multiplies it into something we never could have composed on our own.