Lord, Thee I Love With All My Heart–A great teaching tool for Christian parents, but don’t expect to LIKE it yourself

A few days ago my husband received a package in the mail. Just like my kids, I can’t stand the mystery of an unopened package. I totally ripped it open without permission.

In it was this book. 

The title of it is Lord, Thee I love with All My Heart, which is a hymn that I am pretty familiar with.

I paged through it quickly to discover that the text of the book is exactly the hymn and only the hymn. The illustrations tell a story that connects to each verse and line of the hymn. My 6-year-old daughter removed the book from me to explore it on her own, and she started to ask a whole bunch of questions. “Why did that girl fall down? Why does she have not hair? What is happening to her now?” 

After we sat down together, I realized that the book covers a very heavy topic. In it, a little girl appears to get sick, presumably cancer– and dies. After she dies, her family buries her. Next angels and Jesus are holding her and interacting with her. Finally, the book ends with the whole family all back together wearing white robes. The assumption is that they are reunited in heaven. 

Now the story and the illustrations are absolutely beautiful and the message is a simple and wonderful Christian message. Yet, reviewing this book and hymn was quite a struggle for me especially as I saw such a contrast in reactions between myself, my daughter, and later my 5-year-old niece.

When my daughter and niece looked through the book, both of their reactions were simple. They were briefly fascinated by the story and capable of explaining the meaning. To them, the death of the child gave them pause, but neither were shaken much by it.

As a mother of three, a book like this is difficult to be okay reading. Even though the book is about the joyful spiritual journey of the little girl, I am not the little girl in the story. I’m the mother who has to watch the child suffer, agonize about what will happen next while pretending to be strong, pick out her gravestone, and wait until my own death to see her again.  (I can’t even write this paragraph without tearing up.) 

I am also bothered by some of the lyrics. I think my version of the hymn should be called, “Lord, I wish I loved you with all my heart.” Another line in verse 1 says, 

And should my heart for sorrow break,

My trust in Thee can nothing shake.

Thou art the portion I have sought;

Thy precious blood my soul has bought.

My heart has been broken by sorrow and my reaction was to be mad at God. Maybe my hymn will have to sound like this, 

And should my heart for sorrow break,

my sins of rage, hate, anger take.

I am the sinner you have sought;

Thy precious blood my soul has bought.

Molly Parsons modified version

I am far more comfortable being honest about my sin so that I can see everything that I have been redeemed from and marvel at all God is willing to forgive.

My fixation on the death in the story also revealed the gap between my adult faith and the faith of a child. The point of the story is to help believers visualize the joyful reunion between believers and between Jesus and his children. It’s hard for me to not dwell on the pain of loss on earth and to remember the promises of God that are to come.

But let’s consider a different audience. Many adults, understandably, are afraid to talk about death with children. Because of our Christian faith, my niece and daughter have heard about death many times over. The gospel message has prevented a fear of death from developing and Satan hasn’t had quite enough time yet to badger their hearts with the pain of loss. They quite literally have the “faith of a child.” I love how this book reinforces the salvation message with pictures. It is a great book to show a child what will happen when they or a loved one dies. I also appreciate how the parents appear to be sad, but okay. Young children aren’t ready for the complexities of rage alongside faith. Children do not need to be worried about the faith of the adults around them. All they need to know is Jesus is taking care of the sad adults too and they will see their families again in heaven.

My review summary is this:

I highly recommend using this book as a teaching tool for Christian parents and children. The illustrations will help children understand the abstract salvation concepts by presenting a concrete, realistic example. It will probably be painful as an adult to consider what it would be like to experience the death of your own child, but maybe there is a faith lesson for you in that as well. 

The Lord, Thee I Love with All My Heart book illustrated by Kelly Schumacher is published by Kloria Publishing. Kloria Publishing creates and distributes books, artistic works, and other materials which proclaim the unchanging Gospel of Jesus Christ and uphold the teachings of God’s Word as correctly expounded in the Lutheran Confessions.