She was 50, she had failed to raise missionary funds, and she couldn't understand why God had closed the door. An old woman's prayer changed everything she thought the question was.
Sarah Adelaide Pollard was a Bible teacher and aspiring missionary working in the late 19th and early 20th century United States. By 1902 she had spent considerable time and effort attempting to raise enough support to travel to Africa — a persistent calling she felt deeply but could not seem to bring to fruition. The funds did not come. Door after door closed.
At 50 years old — an age when most women of her era would have considered a foreign mission simply beyond them — she was dealing not only with the practical failure of the fundraising but with the more profound disorientation of feeling strongly called to something God seemed to be actively preventing.
She attended a prayer meeting during this period, feeling, by her own later account, discouraged and spiritually confused.
During the meeting an elderly woman prayed. The prayer was simple and unhurried — the prayer of someone who had long since stopped arguing with God about outcomes. In the course of it, she said words that reached Pollard with unexpected force. The substance, as Pollard later recalled it, was this: "It's all right, Lord. It doesn't matter what You bring into our lives. Just have Your way with us."
Not have my way. Not explain Your way. Just — have Your way.
Pollard went home that night and sat at her desk. She wrote all four verses of "Have Thine Own Way, Lord" before sleeping — the entire hymn, words and verses complete, built on the potter and clay imagery of Jeremiah 18, the very image the old woman's prayer had called up:
"Have Thine own way, Lord. Have Thine own way. Thou art the Potter, I am the clay."
She never made it to Africa.
The hymn traveled to every continent instead.
Share this with someone whose plan has failed and who is trying to figure out if God's silence is a no or a not yet.
"Yet you, Lord, are our Father. We are the clay; you are the potter." — Isaiah 64:8
#HaveThineOwnWay #AdelaidePollard #ChurchHistory #LesserKnownHistory #HistoriaEcclesiae
Sarah Adelaide Pollard was a Bible teacher and aspiring missionary working in the late 19th and early 20th century United States. By 1902 she had spent considerable time and effort attempting to raise enough support to travel to Africa — a persistent calling she felt deeply but could not seem to bring to fruition. The funds did not come. Door after door closed.
At 50 years old — an age when most women of her era would have considered a foreign mission simply beyond them — she was dealing not only with the practical failure of the fundraising but with the more profound disorientation of feeling strongly called to something God seemed to be actively preventing.
She attended a prayer meeting during this period, feeling, by her own later account, discouraged and spiritually confused.
During the meeting an elderly woman prayed. The prayer was simple and unhurried — the prayer of someone who had long since stopped arguing with God about outcomes. In the course of it, she said words that reached Pollard with unexpected force. The substance, as Pollard later recalled it, was this: "It's all right, Lord. It doesn't matter what You bring into our lives. Just have Your way with us."
Not have my way. Not explain Your way. Just — have Your way.
Pollard went home that night and sat at her desk. She wrote all four verses of "Have Thine Own Way, Lord" before sleeping — the entire hymn, words and verses complete, built on the potter and clay imagery of Jeremiah 18, the very image the old woman's prayer had called up:
"Have Thine own way, Lord. Have Thine own way. Thou art the Potter, I am the clay."
She never made it to Africa.
The hymn traveled to every continent instead.
Share this with someone whose plan has failed and who is trying to figure out if God's silence is a no or a not yet.
"Yet you, Lord, are our Father. We are the clay; you are the potter." — Isaiah 64:8
#HaveThineOwnWay #AdelaidePollard #ChurchHistory #LesserKnownHistory #HistoriaEcclesiae
She was 50, she had failed to raise missionary funds, and she couldn't understand why God had closed the door. An old woman's prayer changed everything she thought the question was.
Sarah Adelaide Pollard was a Bible teacher and aspiring missionary working in the late 19th and early 20th century United States. By 1902 she had spent considerable time and effort attempting to raise enough support to travel to Africa — a persistent calling she felt deeply but could not seem to bring to fruition. The funds did not come. Door after door closed.
At 50 years old — an age when most women of her era would have considered a foreign mission simply beyond them — she was dealing not only with the practical failure of the fundraising but with the more profound disorientation of feeling strongly called to something God seemed to be actively preventing.
She attended a prayer meeting during this period, feeling, by her own later account, discouraged and spiritually confused.
During the meeting an elderly woman prayed. The prayer was simple and unhurried — the prayer of someone who had long since stopped arguing with God about outcomes. In the course of it, she said words that reached Pollard with unexpected force. The substance, as Pollard later recalled it, was this: "It's all right, Lord. It doesn't matter what You bring into our lives. Just have Your way with us."
Not have my way. Not explain Your way. Just — have Your way.
Pollard went home that night and sat at her desk. She wrote all four verses of "Have Thine Own Way, Lord" before sleeping — the entire hymn, words and verses complete, built on the potter and clay imagery of Jeremiah 18, the very image the old woman's prayer had called up:
"Have Thine own way, Lord. Have Thine own way. Thou art the Potter, I am the clay."
She never made it to Africa.
The hymn traveled to every continent instead.
Share this with someone whose plan has failed and who is trying to figure out if God's silence is a no or a not yet.
"Yet you, Lord, are our Father. We are the clay; you are the potter." — Isaiah 64:8
#HaveThineOwnWay #AdelaidePollard #ChurchHistory #LesserKnownHistory #HistoriaEcclesiae
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