We've Always Been Provided For

          I have been working on going through my file cabinets and trying to get rid of so many things that I no longer need.  While doing this I found an old poem, "We've Always Been Provided For" which was a favorite of my grandparents.  Having lived through very hard times, including the Depression, the words were almost like their personal testimony.  I am not really sure, but I think I remember that they may have even sung these words as a duet.  Anyway, I think the words are interesting and I have decided to share them with you in this blog.

          I did an internet search but found nothing about the poem except that it was once printed in the Advent Review and Sabbath Herald on December 26, 1912.  The language and the story may be over a century old, but the lesson is just the same today as it was then.

Good wife, what are you singing for?

You know we've lost the hay;

And what we'll do with horse and cow

Is more than I can say;

While like as not, with storm and rain,

We'll lose both corn and wheat,

She looked up with a pleasant face,

And answered low and sweet:

"There is a Heart, there is a Hand,

we feel but can not see;

We've always been provided for,

And we shall always be."

He turned around with a sudden gloom

She said: "Love me at rest,

You cut the grass, worked soon and late,

You did your very best:;

That was your work, and you've naught at all

To do with wind and rain;

And do not doubt but you will reap,

Rich fields of golden grain:

"There is a Heart, there is a Hand,

we feel but can not see;

We've always been provided for,

And we shall always be."

"That's like a woman's reasoning -

We must because we must,"

She softly said: "I reason not

I only work and trust;

The harvest may redeem the day -

Keep heart whatever betide;

When one door shuts, I've always seen

Another open wide.

"There is a Heart, there is a Hand,

we feel but can not see;

We've always been provided for,

And we shall always be."

He kissed the calm and trustful face;

Gone was his restless pain:

She heard him with a cheerful step

Go whistling down the lane,

And went about her household tasks

Full of a glad content,

Singing to time her busy hands

As to and fro she went;

"There is a Heart, there is a Hand,

we feel but can not see;

We've always been provided for,

And we shall always be."

Days come and go - twas Thanksgiving time,

And the great fire burned clear.

The farmer said, "Dear wife it's been

A good and happy year;

The fruit was gain, the surplus corn

Has bought the hay you know."

She lifted her smiling face, and said:

"I told you so!"

"For There is a Heart, there's a Hand,

We feel but can not see;

We've always been provided for,

And we shall always be."

As I read this I was reminded of one of my favorite verses, Psalm 37:25, "I have been young and now am old: yet have not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging."