Under His wings I am safely abiding,
Though the night deepens and tempests are wild,
Still I can trust Him; I know He will keep me,
He has redeemed me, and I am His child.
Under His wings, under His wings,
Who from His love can sever?
Under His wings my soul shall abide,
Safely abide forever.
Under His wings, what a refuge in sorrow!
How the heart yearningly turns to His rest!
Often when earth has no balm for my healing,
There I find comfort, and there I am blest.
Public domain hymn text (published 1896). Words by William O. Cushing.
The Story Behind the Hymn
William O. Cushing was a Congregational and later 'Christian Connection' minister whose previously active pastoral preaching ministry ended abruptly and permanently partway through his working career when a severe illness cost him the use of his own speaking voice entirely, a genuinely devastating personal and professional loss for a man whose entire sense of vocational calling had, up to that point, centered specifically on preaching aloud from the pulpit each week. Rather than abandoning church ministry altogether following this loss, Cushing instead turned deliberately toward hymn writing as an alternative way to continue actively serving the wider church despite no longer being physically able to preach, ultimately producing several hundred separate hymn texts across the many remaining decades of his subsequent life.
This hymn draws its central governing image directly from Psalm 91:4 ('He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust') together with the closely related image found in Psalm 17:8, both biblical passages picturing God's active protection of His people using the vivid natural image of a mother bird deliberately sheltering her vulnerable young beneath her own outstretched wings during moments of genuine external danger.
The hymn's repeatedly emphasized theme of finding genuine refuge specifically 'under' divine protection during life's metaphorical storms carried particular personal resonance and authenticity for Cushing himself, whose own previously active pastoral ministry had been abruptly and permanently reshaped by a specific physical affliction he had neither chosen for himself nor in any way anticipated, yet from within the ongoing limits of which he nonetheless continued, for decades afterward, to find genuinely purposeful and lastingly significant creative work through hymn writing rather than preaching.
