SO, SEND I YOU

Mercifully giving to the needs of others is often an act of faith without the expectation of reward.  Yet that doesn’t mean it is easy!  When a fellow human needs a helping hand, it is the right and unselfish response to reach out with support!

Margaret Clarkson was Canadian and although she had been born in Saskatchewan, her family moved to Toronto, Ontario when she was 5.  She was 20 when she graduated as a teacher in 1935.  At the time, teaching jobs were very scarce.  Yet she found work in the far north of Ontario…first in a lumber camp and then in a gold-mining area.  There was little support for mental and especially spiritual needs.  It would be 7 long and lonely years before she could return to Toronto where she taught for another 31 years. 

Earlier in her life, Margaret had been prevented from becoming a missionary due to a physical disability.  One night in northern Ontario, as she was reading John chapter 20 where she read, “So send I you,” and God seemed to tell her that He had surely sent her into this mission field!  Margaret had written verse all of her life, so it was natural for her to express her thoughts in a poem!

Her poem was sent to a friend who intern sent it to a Christian magazine that published it.  Her text landed in the hands of John W. Peterson who, while on a family holiday, sat at his mother’s piano and composed music for it.  In later years, Margaret updated her words to what she felt were more Biblically accurate concepts, yet most hymn books still use her initial words.  Some publications actually have both versions printed.

Margaret passed away in 2008 but her hymn, SO SEND I YOU, continues today to uplift those discouraged in their Christian service of faith and mercy to others.