Sunday Snippet: A Hymn Writers Biography… A GiveAway.

I know it has been weeks since a GiveAway and I have a feeling you may have forgotten that we actually have GiveAways on our blog. So here you are, this weeks GiveAway is the biography of Frances Ridley Havergal… And you may well ask: “Who on earth is that?” She was a hymn writer, the daughter of a pastor and born in 1836 and spent most of her life in England. She was a prolific writer and you probably know more than a few of her hymns yourself!!!

I love teaching my kids hymns, I believe it is part of the Christian tradition. Not only are hymns packed with Biblical Truth but they give us a sense of tradition and belonging. Singing a hymn that has been sung on Sundays for hundreds of years helps us to feel that we belong, not just to our family, not just to our church but to a world wide brotherhood of Christians traveling back and lingering in time.

My kids are not the best at learning miles of Bible verses but with a number of traditional hymns learnt by heart they will be well equipped with Biblical concepts hidden in their hearts and as part of their spiritual armor as they grow up and face the world. I like to hear them whistling hymns while they work and I like that they can sing hymns on a Sunday morning in church with enthusiasm and confidence and be part of the church family. Recently we have been purposefully looking to see who wrote the hymns we sing and learn a little about the writers behind them. I we have a quick quiz after church to see who can remember a hymn writer from the service. Often we have to go and look it up.

This is where we came upon Frances Ridley Havergal. This book tells the story of her life beginning with her early childhood, it is a lovely story and paints a beautiful picture of her life, which wasn’t an easy one. She was quite a brilliant student and her remarkable ability to write poems and hymns was revealed at a young age. I love that this book has photographs in it, photographs of the home she lived in. Copies of her school reports and hymns she has written. So many books about hymn writers don’t have pictures of the writers – they did live in olden times after all, but this book has a beautiful photograph of Frances, which just makes her more real to my kids.

As usual I have to thank CBD, our GiveAway book suppliers for another great book.

The GiveAway works in the usual way, comment before the end of this coming Sunday, 30 October 2011, and we will draw and publish the winner next week! – I won’t respond to your comments as I do on our other posts because I don’t want to be included in our own giveaway.

Our GiveAways are open to everyone: If you have won a GiveAway before never fear – enter away. If you live on the far side of the world – enter away. Postage takes forever from here but eventually it should get to you! Good luck and get commenting!!!