Wednesday, Jan 8

Scripture Isaiah 46:4 (NLT) – “I will be your God throughout your lifetime – until your hair is white with age. I made you, and I will care for you. I will carry you along and save you.”

Message: It was a scary time. The United States was at war. We were forced to practice blackouts at night. As a little girl, under the age of five, I shared a bed with my older sister, Virginia. As a comfort before going to sleep, she would sing the hymn “God will take care of you”¹ to me. The song offered a sense of security, assuring us that no matter what happened outside our little world, God’s care was constant and unwavering.

The story of the hymn and how it came into existence is perhaps even more heartwarming than I recalled from memory. The music that we know, was written by the Reverend W. Stillman Martin, a Baptist evangelist.

Reverend Martin had been invited to preach at a church some distance from his Bible school, but when his wife became ill, he nearly cancelled his invitation to stay home and care for her. It was their young son who inspired the words when he spoke up saying “Father, don’t you think that if God wants you to preach today, He will take care of Mother while you are away?”

Mrs. Civilla Martin wrote the verses during her husband’s absence that day in 1904; she gave the words to her husband upon his return. It was that evening that he penned the music which was published the following year. It was then printed in the songbook he was compiling for the school.

It is quite possible that she was aware of other texts with the phrase “God will take care of you”, but like so many songs from this genre, the key phrase “God will take care of you” and its variant, “He will take care of you,”¹ are sung often. In this case, if you sing all four stanzas and the refrain, you will sing the title twenty times!

Prayer: Heavenly Father, I thank You for always being with me. For comforting me as a scared child and guiding me as I grew, and also sometimes as a frightened adult. I know that my love for You can only be surpassed by Your love for me. Amen.

Ann Gile
Sunnyside Chapel
Sarasota, Florida, USA

1. “He will take care of you” or “God will take care of you” words by Civilla D Martin 1904, music by Walter Stillman Martin 1905. Public Domain. UM Hymnal #130.