The Hymn That Was Never Meant to Be Heard

In 1844, a young Irishman named Joseph Scriven stood at the edge of the water where his fiancee had drowned — the evening before their wedding. The grief nearly destroyed him. He left Ireland for Canada, gave away most of what he owned, and devoted himself to serving the poor and the sick.

Years later, when his mother fell ill back in Ireland and he could not be with her, Scriven sat down and wrote a poem to comfort her. He never intended anyone else to read it. But a friend found the manuscript by his bedside and asked who had written it. Scriven reportedly said, "The Lord and I did it between us."

That poem became the hymn we know as What a Friend We Have in Jesus.

What strikes me is that Scriven did not write from a place of triumph. He wrote from a place of wounds still tender. He had not gotten over his grief — he had learned to bring it somewhere. "What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear." Those words were not theology at arm's length. They were a man pressing his own sorrow into the hands of the Almighty.

Healing does not always mean the pain disappears. Sometimes it means we discover that our deepest wounds can become the very offering God uses to comfort others. What you carry to Him in private, He may use to minister to thousands.