Joseph Scriven lived a difficult life. Raised in Northern Ireland in the early 19th century, he left college to pursue a military career, and was sent to India for training. However, poor health demanded that he withdraw from the military and return to school at Trinity College in Dublin. At the age of 25, he was engaged to be married to his childhood sweetheart. However, on the evening before their wedding, she fell from her horse while crossing a bridge over the River Bann and drowned.
About that tragedy, Scriven said, “The bottom of my world seemed to disappear.” Heartbroken, Joseph moved to Canada, to what is now Ontario. Sometime later, Joseph fell in love again and became engaged to be married to Eliza Roach, but before their wedding, Eliza died of pneumonia. Scriven worked as a tutor (for low wages) and published a book of hymns, and he spent much of his time sawing wood without pay for widows and the sick, and he was known for giving his clothes away to people less fortunate than himself.
When Joseph received word that his mother in Ireland was seriously sick, he could not afford to sail home to see her, so he wrote a poem to encourage her. Starting with his second stanza, Joseph said to his mother, “Have we trials and temptations? Is there trouble anywhere? We should never be discouraged; take it to the Lord in prayer! Can we find a friend so faithful, who will all our sorrows share? Jesus knows our every weakness; take it to the Lord in prayer. Are we weak and heavy laden, cumbered with a load of care? Precious Savior, still our refuge—take it to the Lord in prayer! Do your friends despise, forsake you? Take it to the Lord in prayer! In his arms, he’ll take and shield you; you will find a solace there.”
None of the hymns Scriven published in his collection of hymns expresses such personal experience as this song. One author remarked, “Almost all of his others are more firmly constructed, without emotional softness, and developed from biblical texts.” But this was written as a poem to his ailing mother, to remind her of the truths they had discovered in their lives of the love and the nearness of Christ: “What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear!”
The message Joseph Scriven shared with his mother, and the message you and I need to hear when we are struggling with difficult things in our lives, is that Christ loves us and is with us in all the highs and lows of our lives. Even when we find ourselves weak and heavy laden, cumbered with a load of care, Christ is still our refuge. He will take us in his arms and shield us; we will find a solace in his infinite love.