January 29, 2005

So Send I You

Edith Margaret Clarkson, 1915-

      Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" And I said, "Here am I. Send me!" Isaiah 6:8.

    Clarkson grew up in Toronto, Canada, and was educated at the Riverdale Collegiate Institute, Toronto Teachers’ College, and the University of Toronto. For 38 years she taught elementary school in Ontario. A gifted natural writer, she published hundreds of poems, articles, songs and sketches, and 17 books in 7 languages. Hymn writing was her first love, and sprang from a lifetime of Bible study, personal Christian experience, and a disciplined lyrical expression. Her hymns were published in A Singing Heart (Carol Stream, Illinois: Hope Publishing Company, 1987). At its 1992 national convention, The Hymn Society in the United States and Canada named Clarkson a Fellow of the Society in recognition of her contribution to hymnody. Clarkson’s hymns  include:

    Isolated from Christian fellowship and feeling very lonely, Margaret Clarkson was a 23-year-old school teacher in a gold-mining camp town in northern Ontario, Canada. Her friends and family were many miles away. As she meditated on John 20:21 one evening, God spoke to her through the phrase, "So send I you." She realized that this lonely area was the place to which God had sent her. This was her mission field. As she quickly set down her thoughts in verse, one of the finest and most popular missionary hymns of the 20th century was born.
    Because of a physical disability, Miss Clarkson has been unable to fulfill her early desire of going to a foreign mission field. Yet her distinguished career in education, her many inspiring writings, and this challenging missionary hymn have accomplished much for the kingdom of God, even though she has remained in Canada.
    These words have been greatly used by God to challenge many to respond to God's call for service with the words of the prophet Isaiah, "Here am I . . . send me!"

    So send I you to labor unrewarded, to serve unpaid, unloved, unsought, unknown, to bear rebuke, to suffer scorn and scoffing -- So send I you to toil for me alone.

    So send I you to bind the bruised and broken, o'er wand'ring souls to work, to weep, to wake, to bear the burdens of a world a-wary -- So send I you to suffer for My sake.

    So send I you to loneliness and longing, with heart a-hung'ring for the loved and known, forsaking home and kindred, friend and dear one -- So send I you to know my love alone.

    So send I you to leave your life's ambition, to die to dear desire, self-will resign, to labor long and love where men revile you -- So send I you to lose your life in Mine.

    So send I you to hearts made hard by hatred, to eyes made blind because they will not see, to spend -- tho it be blood -- to spend and spare not -- So send I you to taste of Calvary. "As the Father hath sent Me, so send I you."