Go My Children With My Blessing Hymn Story

We sang the lovely hymn a few weeks ago “Go My Children with My Blessing. I didn’t know much about its author or its tune so thought it would be a fun story to share. I love the quote that those who sing pray twice and isn’t that the truth! Even if you aren’t a singer, saying the words from music can be a divine moment!

Here is the song if you are not familiar with this hymn. If you are reading this by email you may need to go to the blog to see the video:

Aren’t those words so reassuring and heart- warming? Comforting and nourishing, for sure

The author is Jaroslav Vajda who lived from 1919-2008 and was born in my home state of Ohio. He was a Lutheran pastor and served parishes in Indiana, Missouri, and Pennsylvania.  He wrote more than 200 hymns, though he didn’t write his first hymn till age 49.  Hope for all of us late bloomers!

I found an interview with him about this hymn where he said,

“When I was working at Concordia Publishing House as a book editor back in the early 1980s, . . . (I was) asked to write a text for the beautiful Welsh melody associated the “All Through the Night.” Because evening or nighttime texts have limited use, the idea was for me to develop a ‘day-time text’ so the familiarity with and use of (this) lovely melody could be widened.

The original text, “All Through the Night,” was a description of a mother singing a comforting song to her child at bedtime. One popular variation of the original Welsh text read in verse one;

Sleep my child, and peace attend thee
All through the night;
Guardian angels God will send thee,
All through the night;
Soft the drowsy hours are creeping,
Hill and vale in slumber sleeping,
I my loving vigil keeping,
All Through the night.

Most of the texts I have written have come abut through inspiration.  I don’t remember struggling to put something original together in this instance . . . As I sat down to begin work on this assignment, instead of envisioning a mother singing to her child, I pictured our Heavenly Father singing to his children.  The melody is so powerful and the parental image of the original is so appropriate a human metaphor of God’s love that it didn’t take me long to complete the text.

“Go My Children” personalizes the Benediction.  I pictured the liturgy as a get-together, to which God has invited us, and incorporated the events that take place in the service.  I placed the words of this hymn into the mouth of the blessing triune God.  It occurred to me that when we sing this hymn, what we’re really doing is quoting God, just as we often quote the Word of God from Scripture . . . In the concluding stanza it is as if God is saying ‘I’ve enjoyed this get-together so much I can hardly wait for us to meet again.  Go in peace.  This is what you came for.  This is what I am sending you home with.”

Wow!  Now go back and listen to that hymn again.  Knowing how he wrote those words add so much more meaning to this lovely hymn and brings us all closer to our heavenly Father.

What hymn has spoken to you lately?