SBConnect

Sep 2019

Dear fellow alumni,

Annie Johnson Flint (1866-1932) was a woman familiar with pain. She lost her dream of being a concert pianist in her early 20s due to rheumatoid arthritis. It worsened so much that she could no longer walk by the age of 30. Her condition worsened steadily leaving her with joints inflamed, body disfigured, and sleep hard to come by because of pain. Yet instead of words of complaint, she testified of God: “to added affliction, He added His mercy, to multiplied trials His multiplied peace.”

This past month has been filled with news of deaths, burnouts, crisis, ministry struggles, as well as physical and emotional pains within our SBC alumni family. May this poem of Annie Johnson Flint be a source of comfort, assurance, encouragement and support to everyone:

He giveth more grace when the burdens grow greater,
He sendeth more strength when the labors increase;
To added affliction He addeth His mercy,
To multiplied trials His multiplied peace.

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.

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.

His love has no limit, His grace has no measure,
His pow’r has no boundary known unto men;
For out of His infinite riches in Jesus,
He giveth, and giveth, and giveth again.