Edith Margaret Clarkson (1915–2008) was a Canadian schoolteacher, always known as Margaret, whose first published hymn was written in 1946, and most of whose texts were collected in A Singing Heart. A Presbyterian by upbringing and conviction, she treasured the catechisms and confessions of that tradition. Like the apostle who believed in One ‘who works all things according to the counsel of his will’ (Eph 1:11), Margaret never let her trust in that sovereign God become an excuse for fatalism, laziness or apathy. Margaret never wrote lightly of the ‘powers of death and darkness’, even ‘the Lord of pain’, suffering her own plagues of continual arthritis and migraine since childhood. These severely limited her mobility in later years.She did not find singleness easy, and devoted one of her many books to the subject. She valued the opportunity, not always available in Canada, of meeting fellow hymnwriters and comparing their joys and frustrations with her own. She longed to share with others her passion for global mission, often expressed in song¹.

O Father, you are sovereign
in all the worlds you made;
your mighty Word was spoken
and light of life obeyed.
Your voice commands the seasons
and bounds the ocean’s shore,
sets stars within their courses
and stills the tempest’s roar.

O Father, you are sovereign
in all affairs of man;
no powers of death or darkness
can thwart your perfect plan.
All chance and change transcending,
supreme in time and space,
you hold your trusting children
secure in your embrace.

O Father, you are sovereign,
the Lord of human pain,
transmuting early sorrows
to gold of heav’nly gain.
All evil over ruling, as
none but Conq’ror could,
your love pursues its purpose-
our souls’ eternal good.

O Father, you are sovereign,
We see you dimly now,
but soon before you triumph
earth’s every knee shall bow.
With this glad hope before us
our faith springs up a-new:
our sovereign Lord and Saviour,
we trust and worship you.

¹hymnsocietygbi.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/0713-O-father-you-are-sovereign-Idle.pdf