Margaret Clarkson’s Life Testimony
Margaret Clarkson is only 23 years old. This beautiful young lady is confined to a wheelchair. She has a disability, which makes it difficult for her to travel. But even if she were able to travel, she would have nowhere to go. Where could she possibly go? She lives in a truly remote location. Just imagine: she lives with her parents in a small, quiet settlement built specifically for mining workers. It is situated in the virtually uninhabited interior of Northern Canada. The nearest major town can only be reached by aeroplane. It is truly remote and far from everything.
As a result, Margaret feels as though she is an outcast. She feels lonely. At times, her loneliness felt so suffocating and tormenting.
One day, Margaret read John 20:21, where Christ’s words to the twelve apostles are recorded: “Peace be with you! Just as the Father has sent me, so I am sending you.”
Suddenly, the thought occurred to Margaret that she should become a missionary. She thought: Rather than being stuck here in isolation, I might as well go to an even more remote place to preach the Gospel. Yes, I’d better go to a distant continent. I could enrol in a theological seminary. After graduating, I’ll become a preacher of the Gospel. I’ll be a missionary there. Yes, I want to!
Every day Margaret prayed, “Lord, I want to serve You. Send me!” Margaret was indeed easily ambitious. Now her ambition was to become a Gospel missionary to a distant continent. She was so eager to imagine that there she would learn about many fascinating cultures and languages.
But then Margaret realised that being a Gospel missionary did not always mean having to go to a distant place. Are there not people in this very village who need the comfort and guidance of the Gospel? She thought: ‘Even here, I can be a messenger of Christ. Perhaps this is precisely where Christ has sent me.’
Then Margaret took up her pen and wrote a poem which later became the hymn ‘I Send You’ as we know it today in PKJ 182 and NKB 210 as follows:
I send you to serve selflessly,
to labour on with a steadfast heart, though scorned and bearing sorrow,
I send you to serve Me.
Chorus:
For the Father has sent Me,
I send you.
I send you to bind up the wounded,
to help souls heavy with lament,
to bear the world’s hardships and suffering.
I send you to make sacrifices for Me.
I send you to the marginalised,
For their hearts are weighed down with sorrow,
all alone, without kin or friends.
I send you to share My love.
I send you forth: set aside your ambitions,
quell all your desires,
but work alongside your fellow human beings.
I send you forth to stand firm in unity.
I send you forth to seek out your fellow human beings
whose steadfast hearts are bound in chains,
’to delve into the work at Calvary.
I send you to follow in My footsteps.
This hymn was written in 1938 when the World War was haunting humanity. Margaret wrote her verses with a broad scope, encompassing the sufferings of the twelve apostles, the martyrs who fell victim to religious hatred, the victims of the World War, and, more broadly still, every person who has ever endured physical or emotional suffering throughout the ages. Margaret also noted the physical and emotional suffering of the messengers of the Gospel as the price to be paid or the risk of their service.
The suffering of both those served and those who serve is more clearly evident in the original text:
So I send you to labour unrewarded,
to serve unpaid, unloved, unsought, unknown,
to bear rebuke, to suffer scorn and mockery.
So I send you to toil for me alone.
So I send you to hearts hardened by hatred,
to eyes blinded because they will not see,
to spend — though it be blood, to spend and spare not.
So I send you to taste of Calvary.
Literal translation:
So I send you to labour without reward,
to serve without pay, without love, without being asked, without being recognised,
to endure scolding, to suffer humiliation and ridicule.
So I send you to labour for Me alone.
So I send you to hearts hardened by hatred,
to eyes blinded by their refusal to see,
to pay — even with blood, to pay without stinginess.
So I send you to experience Golgotha.
What is striking about Margaret’s writing is also the message to herself contained in the fourth stanza. It is as though she is advising herself with the phrases “abandon your ambition” and “extinguish all your desires” (to die to dear desire, self-will resign, literally: extinguish your cherished longing, relinquish your own will).
What is meant here is Margaret’s desire to travel to a distant continent, motivated by “dear desire” and “self-will”. It seems, then, that Margaret is playing on words in the final line of the fourth stanza, which reads, “So send I you to lose your life in Mine”. Although it is clear that Mine refers to the service belonging to Christ or the people belonging to Christ, Margaret appears to be playing on the word mine, which has two distinct meanings: mine and mine. Perhaps Margaret is reminding herself that it is precisely to this ‘mine’ that she has been sent. Perhaps she realises that it is in her very own home that Christ has placed her as a messenger of the Gospel. To be a messenger of the Gospel, one need not go far; one can do so right where one is.
Quoted from:
Happy Friendship, Andar Ismail
