Fill My Cup, Lord

April 20, 2018 (Friday)
The following information is copied from Jim Garvey at this website: https://www.umcdiscipleship.org/resources/history-of-hymns-fill-my-cup-lord.”
In 1953 Methodist pastor Richard Blanchard (1925-2004) was waiting for a couple to arrive for pre-marital counseling at Wesley Church in Coral Gables, Florida. They were late, and he began to doodle on the piano to kill time. It took only six minutes to think up the words of ‘Fill my Cup, Lord.’ He was finished with the music in another 20 minutes. Richard said later, “There have been a few moments in my life when things have come from God. There is no other way to explain them.”
Blanchard’s own cup was not filled with sweetness. A lung condition required two surgeries and left him with one-third of normal lung capacity. His son, Richard, was left a quadriplegic at seventeen after an accident. And after Blanchard and his wife moved to North Carolina in 2000 to be near their three grown children, they experienced their son’s death and the fatal illness of one of their daughters.
Nevertheless, during his forty-year ministry, Blanchard composed dozens of gospel hymns, wrote a musical about Francis of Assisi, produced a regular newspaper column, wrote a biography of Bishop John Branscomb, and launched a popular television ministry in the Miami area.