The Hymn That Emptied a Jewel Box

In February 1874, English poet and hymn writer Frances Ridley Havergal penned the words to Take My Life and Let It Be. Most of us have sung it — "Take my silver and my gold, not a mite would I withhold." But what many don't know is what happened after she wrote those lines.

Havergal looked at the words on the page, then looked at the jewel case sitting on her dresser. It was filled with pieces she treasured — brooches, rings, and a collection she had spent years gathering. And she realized she couldn't sing those words on Sunday and keep that case on Monday.

So she packed it all up and sent it to the Church Missionary Society. In a letter to a friend, she wrote with unmistakable joy: "I don't think I need to tell you I never packed a box with such pleasure."

That's the strange arithmetic of the kingdom. What the world calls loss, the surrendered heart calls freedom. Havergal didn't give out of guilt or obligation. She gave because the song she had written convicted her own soul first, and the giving felt less like sacrifice and more like finally letting go of something too small for the life God was offering her.

El Shaddai never asks us to give what He hasn't first made us willing to release. True sacrifice isn't gritting your teeth — it's opening your hands and discovering they were never meant to stay closed.