Footsteps #214

1. He giveth more grace when the burdens grow greater,
   He sendeth more strength when the labors increase;
   To added afflictions He addeth His mercy,
   To multiplied trials, His multiplied peace.
2. When we have exhausted our store of endurance,
   When our strength has failed ere the day is half done,
   When we reach the end of our hoarded resources
   Our Father’s full giving is only begun.
3. Fear not that thy need shall exceed His provision,
   Our God ever yearns His resources to share;
   Lean hard on the arm everlasting, availing;
   The Father both thee and thy load will upbear.
4. His love has no limits, His grace has no measure,
   His power no boundary known unto men;
   For out of His infinite riches in Jesus
   He giveth, and giveth, and giveth again. Annie J Flint

Postscript: I shared her hymn, now I share her life story. Annie J Flint was born on Christmas Eve 1866, to an English father and Scottish mother. Her mother(23) died 3 years later giving birth. Not long after her father died and Annie and her sister were adopted into the Flint Family. Here she learned the courage she would need later in life, when she would be hemmed in by many trials.

Annie was a cheerful, optimistic, popular and pretty teenager. As a young woman she started teaching but within 3 years began to be crippled with painful arthritis. It steadily grew worse until it became difficult for her to walk at all. At this time, within three months of each other, both her adoptive parents died and she was now an invalid.

With a pen pushed through bent fingers and held by painful swollen joints she wrote without any thought that it might be an avenue of ministry, or that it would help in her support. Many of her poems and cards were published. She always struggled to make ends meet.

Annie became thoroughly convinced that God intended to glorify Himself through her, in her weak, earthen vessel, and like Paul she had many times prayed that this might be taken from her. There came to her with real assurance the promise which said, “My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness.” She reached the place where she could also say with Paul, “Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me” [2Cor.12:9].

The last years of her life brought her no ease from her affliction, no lessening of pain and suffering. In fact, the disease became worse with the passing of the years, and new complications developed. But through it all her faith in the goodness and mercy of God never wavered. and she was at all times able to say “Thy will be done.” Her suffering was unceasing.  September 8th, 1932 Annie J Flint died.

In considering the life of Annie Johnson Flint one is perplexed with questions as old as humanity itself, such as the mystery of pain and suffering, that the righteous should pass through the furnace, sometimes heated seven times, is a great stumbling block to many people.  Read 1Peter.1:6 “For the Scriptures say, “You must be holy because I am holy.” NLT