How Annette Dickman composed “The Bread of Life, Living Water” – Church News

Leighton, Utah – “The author and composer of one of the new hymns included in Hymns for the House and Church,” he told Church News about her questions that led to God’s answers that led to the composition of “The Bread of Life, Living Water.”

On a Sunday afternoon in 1967, Annette Dickman and her husband were sitting at the bedside of their 10-year-old son at Salt Lake City Hospital. The few weeks were extremely difficult. After an emergency surgery for Burst’s appendix, her son’s body was plagued with pain and she felt helpless.

“I just wanted to take it myself so he didn’t have to,” she recalled. Around that time, two priesthood holders entered a room carrying the sacrament. “The Spirit was one of the most powerful things I’ve ever experienced when those sweet brothers were brought into the sacrament. Jesus Christ knew exactly how I felt.”

The words of Alma 7:11-12 came to her heart, highlighting the Savior’s ability, and highlighting his ability to take over his people in pain and suffering.

That day, joining Saint Cra, she gained a deeper understanding of the infinite love of the Savior and the pain of her son, and what she and her husband were feeling.

That sacred recognition became one of many spiritual turning points in her life.

A lifelong desire for wholeness

Although her family moved frequently during her childhood, Logan, Utah, had important significance to Dickman, where she was born and her grandparents lived.

At age 9, they returned for several years, but their father attended graduate studies at university. She cherishes the memory of walking between her piano lessons on the other side of the steep hill where Logan Utah Temple stands. After all the lessons, Dickman “snap the snap dragon” and spent some time sitting on the grass outside the temple.

“I see the temple and think, ‘I’ll never stop me from going there,'” she said. “It was just like my mantra.”

They moved again when her father completed his degree, but after high school she returned to earn her music degree from Utah State University. While there she met her husband. Together they raised five children in Layton, Utah.

Dickman said those times were filled with blessings and deep challenges. Dickman struggled with perfectionism and the associated depression.

“I wanted everything in life to be more holistic and sacred,” she explained.

As a young mother, she often arrives at a crazy church after struggling to prepare her children alone while her husband was in bishop.

“I was worried about what was appropriate to take the sacrament,” she recalled. “When I get there, you’ll think, ‘I can’t do Saint Cra because I just cried out to the kids.’ ”

Through years of Bible study, prayer and gentle experiences, she has come to a new understanding. “No one can be perfect,” she testified, recalling the need for the Savior and underscoring the importance of internalizing it. “He wants us to participate in the sacrament. …It’s a very blessing to remember him all the time and we can do it every week.”

Creating Hymns

Dickman studied symbols in the Sacramental Ordinance in her search to understand the meaning of being worthy.

“Bread feeds us – water gives life,” she recalled thinking. “He is the source of all life. We cannot live without water. We cannot live without Savior.

The phrase “Bread of life, living water” was set in music in her thoughts, and she felt like writing a hymn, but the rest came slowly. Dickman said she continued her studies.

She learned the Hebrew meaning “Therefore you are perfect” (Matthew 5:48) which means being perfect or whole. “I was able to move from worrying about being perfect to the idea of ​​being perfect,” she said. This shift in focus helped her realize that the journey is “from whole to sacred.”

A handful of hymns have come to shape for over two years. The chorus came first: “Food my soul and fill my heart. Lord, I will give me your new life, and bind me to you forever.”

“His process will become ours.”

The three poems, “The Bread of Life, Living Water,” reflect the process of Christ and offer an invitation to your journey. The verses center on Gethsemane, verse 2 of Calvary, and verse 3 of the sacramental table. His sacrifice becomes personal.

“His process will be ours,” Dickman said. “We come before the altar and offer his broken heart to him. Unless we take it and apply it, it is meaningless to us.”

Listen to the hymns here.

For her, the hymns were not just what she wrote, but God gave her. “It was such a valuable blessing and gift, so he personally gave me to teach me, strengthen me and help me become more complete,” she said.

She hopes others will find the same hope, and she recognizes that it is “by the Savior” that can overcome all trials and challenges.

“They can find everything they need,” she said.