Choir devotion – Hymn – “Day By Day” – Bob Walters – 1/29/20

   When you’ve gone through difficult times, has there ever been a particular song that resonated with what you were feeling deep inside? I have a list!  To this day, when I hear those songs, I’m reminded of God’s presence with me during those hard days. When song writers of the faith testify in song what God has done in their lives, we connect with that and if for only a few minutes, it allows us to break away from the heaviness of our situation and freely worship God in the midst of the storm. Even in the most difficult circumstances, God still deserves, welcomes and blesses our worship.

 Karolina Wilhelmina Sandell is the author of the hymn, Day By Day.   You will find her name written a number of ways, but she prefered to be called simply, Lina. (Lie-nah) She was the daughter of a Luthern pastor and his wife. At age 35 Lina married Carl Berg. They had 1 child who died at birth. In the late 1890’s Lina became ill with Typhoid fever and died in 1903 at the age of 70. Her husband died shortly after.

  Oscar Ahnfelt, composer, hymn writer, singer, musician and preacher composed the music for many of Lina’s songs, including DAY BY DAY. He titled the tune, BLOTT EN DAG, which means, JUST ONE DAY. Ahnfelt was known as “The Singing Troubador” as he traveled singing Lina’s  hymns in his evangelistic efforts across Sweden and Norway. Lina is quoted as saying, “Ahnfelt sings my songs into the hearts of the people!”

  If we didn’t now better, we might think that Lina and Ahnfelt were fictional characters that came to life from the pen of a creative Christian author. As a child, Lina was very frail and quite sickly. She loved and admired her father and preferred to spend time with him in his study rather than playing with the other children. At a young age Lina was stricken with partial paralysis and was confined to her bed much of the time, so her father would carry her as often as he could. One Sunday morning, when Lina was 12, she was in her bed reading her Bible and praying as her parents when off to church. When they returned, they found Lina fully dressed and walking around the house. After this experience of physical healing, Lina began writing verses expressing her gratitude and love for God. By the age of 15 she had published her first book of spiritual poetry. At the age of 26, while she and her father were crossing lake Vattern, the ship lurched and her father fell overboard and drowned before her eyes. Although Lina had written many hymns prior to this tragic loss, now more than ever poetic thoughts began flowing from her broken heart. Her hymns, such as DAY BY DAY, reflect a childlike trust in her Savior and a deep sense of his abiding presence in her life. She went on to write over 650 hymns that we know of, but since she would often write songs anonymously and for others or just sign them with her intials, L.S. , we can’t be certian how many hymns Lina actually wrote. The only other hymn of Lina’s I’ve been able to find in English hymnals is a short hymn titled, “CHILDREN OF THE HEAVENLY FATHER.”

  Lina’s songs are credited with bringing momentum to the 19th century revivals in Scandinavia. Because her hymns were obviously pietistic, meaning Lina believed in a personal faith in Christ and that emotions played an important role in a vigorous christian life, her music did not set well with the state church of Sweden. As opposition to the evangelical reform movement rose, a petition was formed asking King Karl XV, ruler of Sweden and Norway, to ban Ahnfelt from singing Lina’s songs. Undecided, King Karl ordered Ahnfelt to sing before him one of Lina’s songs and then he would make his decision. Ahnfelt wrote this, “I was considerably perturbed in mind as to what I should sing before the king, so I besought Lina to write a hymn for the occasion.” Lina was equal to the task and had a new hymn written for Anfelt within a few days. Ahnfelt put Lina’s words to music and armed with his twin neck 10 string guitar and Lina’s new hymn in his pocket, he went to sing for the king in his palace! Here are a few of the lines from the song Lina had written for this occasion.

When he had finished singing, the king gripped Ahnfelt’s hand and with tears in his eyes, he exclaimed, “You may sing as much as you like in both of my Kingdoms!”

   I am reminded of the words of David in Psalm 40, “He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God! Many will see and fear and put their trust in the Lord.” 

  I think for every Hymn of old there is a contemporary sister song of the faith. I paired DAY BY DAY with the Casting Crowns song, GOD OF ALL MY DAYS, which begins,”I came to you with my heart in pieces and found the God with healing in his hands …”                                                                         

   In the church where Becky and I raised our daughters for over 3o years, we celebrated the 5th sunday evenings with a praise and testimony service which included a time of hymn requests. There was a young woman by the name of Jana who always requested hymn #66, DAY BY DAY. I once asked Jana why this Hymn was special to her. She replied, “Bob, when we are singing that hymn, I feel like I’m melting into my Heavenly Father’s arms and He is saying to me, It’s OK Jana, whatever happens in life, I will carry you through it.”

Categories: Bob Walters Hymns of the Faith

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