Children of the Heavenly Father

Children of the heav’nly Father
Safely in His bosom gather;
Nestling bird nor star in Heaven
Such a refuge e’er was given.

God His own doth tend and nourish;
In His holy courts they flourish;
From all evil things He spares them;
In His mighty arms He bears them.

Neither life nor death shall ever
From the Lord His children sever;
Unto them His grace He showeth,
And their sorrows all He knoweth.

Though He giveth or He taketh,
God His children ne’er forsaketh;
His the loving purpose solely
To preserve them pure and holy.

Lina was the daugh­ter of Jo­nas San­dell, pas­tor of the Lu­ther­an church in Fröd­eryd. At age 26, she ac­com­pa­nied her fa­ther on a boat trip across Lake Vättern to Gö­te­borg, dur­ing which he fell over­board and drowned be­fore her eyes. The tra­ge­dy pro­found­ly af­fect­ed Lina and re­port­ed­ly in­spired her to write hymns. Known as the Fan­ny Cros­by of Swe­den, she wrote 650 hymns. She mar­ried Stock­holm mer­chant C. O. Berg in 1867, but con­tin­ued to in­i­tial her hymns “L. S.”
http://www.cyberhymnal.org/bio/s/a/n/sandell-berg_kw.htm




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Pastor emeritus Nathan Bickel has left a new comment on your post "Children of the Heavenly Father":

Thank you for this special posting! And, also, the background about the author! This song is especially dear to me, as Mom picked it for my father's funeral. I never did know, until that time, that it was one of Dad's personal favorites. Some things, husbands only share with their spouses.

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GJ - You are welcome, Pastor Bickel. This hymn is loved by many people, and it means a lot to our family, too.