"Days Will Come that Sap our Vigor" speaks encouragement to individuals and congregations in the face of exhaustion (the first stanza), depression (the second stanza), and even death (the last stanza). In each case, God restores to us strength, hope, and life. The tune for this text, FALLS PARK, alludes to the fact that the author wrote the hymn text after visiting Falls Park in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
About the Author
Heather Josselyn-Cranson is the director of the music ministry program at Northwestern College. She has earned degrees in music composition, sacred music and liturgy from Bates College and Boston University School of Theology, and has served as a minister of music at congregations in Florida, Massachusetts and Russia. An active scholar, she has published articles on music in emerging churches, how translation affects the hymns of Charles Wesley, and women’s participation in the chant of medieval monastic communities.
Dr. Josselyn-Cranson's composition and hymn writing have also received attention. Her choral compositions for the musical Terror Texts received a special commendation for Distinguished Achievement in Choral Music from the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival in 2009. Three of her recent hymns have also won awards: “Every Day We See the Traces” won second prize in the Jesuit 25th Anniversary Hymn Contest sponsored by St. Peter’s Church in Charlotte, North Carolina, in 2011; “Planets Humming as They Wander” won the Boston University School of Theology Hymn Competition in 2010; and “We Cannot Know What Worship Is” received second prize in the Congregational Justice Song Contest sponsored by the Christian Reformed World Relief Committee in 2009.
Josselyn-Cranson, Heather
(2016)
"Days Will Come that Sap Our Vigor,"
Northwestern Review: Vol. 1
:
Iss.
1
, Article 6.
Available at:
https://nwcommons.nwciowa.edu/northwesternreview/vol1/iss1/6