Amazing Grace

“Amazing Grace” was my late husband’s favorite song, because the words shared his personal testimony. God’s amazing grace had found him when he was lost, and God’s grace had saved him, and Fred often said, “Without the amazing grace of God, I would be in hell.”

It seems that the song, “Amazing Grace” has become America’s national hymn. We often hear it sung in national events, and I personally love the special rendition with the bagpipes.

Most Americans have sung the hymn, “Amazing Grace,” but I wonder how many of us are familiar with its author, John Newton?

The words of the song are autobiographical, telling the story of the conversion of the author, John Newton, the son of a sea-going Englishman and his wife. Newton went to sea as a young man, like his father, and his ship almost sank on a voyage from Europe to America. He was not a Christian at the time, but he realized that God had spared his life.

He began attending church, but he was not converted. Later he became captain of a ship that carried slaves from Africa to America, and he gradually realized that slave trafficking was wrong. Newton became an early leader in the abolitionist movement, and he left the sea for good, studying for the ministry and then he became a pastor.

My late husband, Fred, loved these words:

“Amazing Grace, How sweet the sound, That saved a wretch like me.

I once was lost, but now am found, Was blind, but now I see.”

Fred knew that God had saved him from his sins, and knowing Christ gave him great faith to believe God can save any man or woman, no matter what they have done, no matter how far they have fallen.

That belief in God’s grace brought Fred to Skid Row, in downtown Los Angeles, where he opened the Mission. More than 70 years later, we still believe God’s grace will save and transform lives.

Blessings,

Willie Jordan (Mrs. Fred Jordan)