Susanna Wesley, a life that preached
The earliest version of “Hark the Herald Angels Sing” was a poem written in 1739 by Charles Wesley, brother of John Wesley(father of Methodism). I could share the glorious accomplishments of these two men, but without sharing the strength of their mother none of it would make sense.
{trigger warning: mentions of loss of children, house fires, and spousal abandonment}
The first time I heard the name Susanna (Annesley) Wesley was in a college chapel service. The evangelist shared that she was a mother that made sure she got daily Bible reading in, even if she had to sit in a corner with an apron over her head while nineteen children ran around the room.
It sounded absurd; understandable, but absurd.
There clearly had to be more to the story. Like, what happened that this woman is huddling in a corner, enshrouded in apron just trying to find God in the tornado of her days? And what I found explained how her children grew to become mighty men(and women) that walked worthy.
Susanna was the youngest of twenty-five children herself. She understood large family life and the home of a father in ministry. She was home educated, customary for young women in those days, heavily influenced by her doctorate prepared minister father and societal influencing mother. Just like us, Susanna was effected by the decisions of others and herself. Her father became what was known as a “dissenter”, a minister pulling away from politics of the Church of England. Her parents started regularly hosting other clergy in their home, discussing their dissenting beliefs. Samuel Wesley, a twenty-six year old young clergyman, visited the Annesley home with his minister father. Samuel and Susanna met and married when Susanna was nineteen, almost considered an old maid at that time.
Susanna was known as a vibrant, strongly convicted young lady, able to share intellectual conversation as well as run a household. Her husband though, an intellectual hothead, didn’t mince words or finances-he freely spent both. Even with living in the church rectory, their finances were rollercoaster unstable and feeding the growing family was difficult. The growing children were noted to be bright, loud, argumentative, intellectual, and active. With finances in constant insecurity, Susanna is tasked with the entire responsibility of home educating her boys, overseeing any money that did come in, responsibility to see over household needs/repairs/maintenance. It should be noted that Susanna chose to also add her daughters to daily home education lessons, educating them just as structured as the boys. All children were given a strong education, including lessons in Latin and Greek. One area she credited as helpful was scheduled one on one time with each child. Each child had a set time each week with their mother-one hour, uninterrupted. The children learned to respect that time because they knew how special that one on one time was.
And while it was obvious that her husband wasn’t leading his own family, the risk of speaking out against her husband risked financial backing from parishioners, which could include loss of home for her and her children.
While at first glance, it’s easy to dismiss her circumstances as difficult, maybe even par for the time period in which she lived; but, let’s revisit Susanna, huddled in a corner with an apron over her head. Searching for a piece of Peace, seeking God in the chaos of her daily life.
Yes, she did birth nineteen children, but it wasn’t nineteen children swirling around her. Only ten survived childhood, only eight were living when Susanna died. Susanna lived daily with heartache, loss after loss, insecurity. Her anchor keeping her steady was God-and she knew it.
The marriage of Samuel and Susanna was complicated. Her husband disappeared at one point for over a year after a political argument. Yep, after an argument about who would make a better king, Samuel left his pregnant wife to fend for herself. This left Susanna at the rectory with one housekeeper, lots of children, no income, and their church with no minister. The parishioners haggled pregnant Susanna constantly about their missing minister and tithe money. On one occasion, while in groans of childbirth, parishioners stood outside the rectory throwing stones, shouting hate. Amidst the swells of labor, parishioners outside her house screaming slurs, she delivers another child. The parishioners, realizing they had been shouting to a laboring woman, scatter. Exhausted Susanna fell asleep. Her tired housekeeper fell asleep as well. Susanna awakens as the sun rises, finding her newborn baby under the heavily sleeping housekeeper. The baby could not be revived.
Vibrant, deeply convicted Susanna Wesley has heartache handed to her. Again.
More than a year passes. During this time, Susanna buries their baby, family crops were burned (thought to be arson) further decreasing food security, cows were maimed during nighttime, home damaged multiple times with stones thrown. Her husband hears about a small house fire at the rectory and returns. And while we’d like to think that would offer relief, you have to wonder if it felt more like one more ache layered heaped on Susanna’s heart. The debts her husband had left behind still needed repayment. He went to debtors prison. While Susanna’s husband was away in debtors prison, a fill in minister known only as “Mr. Inman” begins a sermon series on financial responsibility-the irony in that didn’t escape me. Susanna felt these sermons were more political than theological and chose to offer a home Bible study option for parishioners in the afternoons. As you can imagine, this increased the fiery sermons from the fill-in minister-he went so far as sending letters to Susanna’s husband sharing his disdain. (The surname Inman tracks from Epworth, Lincolnshire England to borderlands near Scotland to Wilmington, NC to Appalachian Mountain terrain, specifically Cold Mountain. Let me reel back my bunny trail…)
Family friends work are able to secure the release of Samuel Wesley from prison. Her husband is released, home again, she’s pregnant again, finances remain insecure… the rectory goes up in flames for the second time with little John trapped on the second floor. It is unknown if the fire was accidental or arson, but it is noted that parishioners (who did not live nearby) appeared to help rescue young John Wesley escape from the second floor before the roof caved-in the middle of the night. If you read John’s sermons where he refers to himself as a “brand snatched from the burning,” he is referring to this moment in his life. While the rectory rebuild was funded surprisingly quick, this meant pregnant Susanna(still recovering from burn wounds) has to separate her children to homes across town that are willing to take them in. It is noted that Susanna stated that time when they were separated as a life trial. This life trauma left Susanna with more than burn scars. She religiously removed “flames” from the rectory when it was rebuilt. No extra candles or fires were lit to prevent house fires. She went so far as crocheting extra shawls for winter warmth instead of building a larger fire in the fireplace.
It was during this time that Susanna’s husband decides to embark on what he referred to as his life’s work, a high-brow commentary on the traumatic sufferings of Job. While he assured Susanna that this book would bring financial security, he wrote the book exclusively in Latin, making the book unreadable to even his own parishioners. This work consumed many years of his life. Although markedly well written, it would not prove to be the promised financial savior. Samuel Wesley died in April 1735, still in debt. John Wesley, now an adult, paid his deceased father’s debts as a gesture to reconcile the family reputation and remove this weight off his mother. Susanna, penniless, moves in with one of her grown daughters.
You might be tempted to think this would been the end of her story, where she’d fall apart, where she’d say enough is enough. Maybe she’d be hiding in a corner with an apron over her head. Not quite. Susanna may be the strongest woman I’ve never met. She never gave up. Not during childbirth, loss of children(including two sets of twins), a husband that lacked trustworthiness, food scarcity, two house fires(one with trapped child), separation from children, husband in debtors prison twice, grown children paying off family debt, widowed, penniless, homeless. She paused and found her piece of peace if needed, and then she’d stand and follow God’s leading. This woman could have thrown up her hands and said enough is enough is enough…and none of us would blame her. And yet she kept going, pausing when needed, just doing one correct thing slowly followed by another.
At the end of her life, she lived in a mission house her son John was developing, utilizing his “method” style of worship he began as his daily routine when he was at Oxford University(yes, Susanna home educated her boy, that same one that almost went down with a burning house, all the way to Oxford). And while John Wesley is referred to as the father of Methodism, those who know about his solid as a rock mom lovingly call Susanna the mother of Methodism.
Never underestimate a mother on a mission.
When God is first and foremost, even on the days that you hide under apron shrouds begging for a piece of Peace in it all, there’s guidance through both trials and triumphs.
Susanna’s children, that grew up being mocked for their father, watched their mother. Her life preached.
That high brow book their father wrote, the one in Latin about the trials of Job, the book that was going to rescue them but actually left them in further debt? Susanna’s son, Charles, was inspired to take a different route and found a way to teach theology to the average person. He recognized that not every parishioner would be able to read a copy of the Bible…BUT THEY COULD SING. And so he purposed each song he would write should be able to preach its own theological sermon. When you see a Charles Wesley hymn, read it like a sermon-that was his intention.
Susanna Annesley Wesley had no way of knowing how her life would play out. She had no way of knowing how those hyper, loud, arguing children would turn out. She had no way of knowing if her boys and girls would live for God or land in debt like their daddy. She just showed up every day, despite circumstances, despite layer after layer of heart ache. Some days she looked for peace under an apron, children swirling around her, some days she saw the fruit of decades of her labor.
Her final request to her children: “Children, as soon as I am released, sing a psalm of praise to God.”
“Hark, the Herald Angels Sing”
by Charles Wesley
Hark! The herald angels sing,
“Glory to the newborn King;
Peace on earth, and mercy mild,
God and sinners reconciled!”
Joyful, all ye nations rise,
Join the triumph of the skies;
With th’angelic host proclaim,
“Christ is born in Bethlehem!”
Refrain:
Hark! the herald angels sing,
“Glory to the newborn King!”
Christ, by highest Heav’n adored;
Christ the everlasting Lord;
Late in time, behold Him come,
Offspring of a virgin’s womb.
Veiled in flesh the Godhead see;
Hail th’incarnate Deity,
Pleased with us in flesh to dwell,
Jesus our Emmanuel.
Hail the heav’nly Prince of Peace!
Hail the Sun of Righteousness!
Light and life to all He brings,
Ris’n with healing in His wings.
Mild He lays His glory by,
Born that man no more may die;
Born to raise the sons of earth,
Born to give them second birth.
Come, Desire of nations, come,
Fix in us Thy humble home;
Rise, the woman’s conqu’ring Seed,
Bruise in us the serpent’s head.
Now display Thy saving pow’r,
Ruined nature now restore;
Now in mystic union join
Thine to ours, and ours to Thine.
Adam’s likeness, Lord, efface,
Stamp Thine image in its place:
Second Adam from above,
Reinstate us in Thy love.
Let us Thee, though lost, regain,
Thee, the Life, the inner man:
Oh, to all Thyself impart,
Formed in each believing heart.
