The church released the third batch from the new hymnal last week, and it contains a mixture of hymns I’m familiar with and ones that are new to me. One distinctly Mormon addition is Faith in Every Footstep, which was written to commemorate the pioneers and their faith.
I grew up in California, where the pioneers arrived a year before they arrived in Utah, so we had our big sesquicentennial celebration in 1996, before the whole church-wide celebration in 1997. The stake youth did a big play that we rehearsed for months, and the grand finale was Faith in Every Footstep.
Although the hymn was written about people crossing the plains in wagons and handcarts, or sailing and landing in gold country before deciding whether to stay or proceed east to join the rest of the saints, there’s nothing explicitly pioneer about the words. Just as the pioneers exercised faith in their footsteps, we can exercise faith in ours, wherever those footsteps might take us.
2 Responses
Thanks for this message of reminder. I remember hearing that Tune at every event we attended with our young family. There is tremendous meaning in that simple song.
Hopefully you’re a soprano, because the new hymn is a different arrangement than what was used 30 years ago.