“God created us with the ability to declare His Word in song, and we are urged in Scripture to do this.”
Pat Dys
A life of faith and song.
Pat Dys’s hymn poetry grew from her walk with the Lord, her love of Scripture, and her appreciation of the church’s musical heritage.
Scripture, music, and teaching ran through Pat’s life. Her family remembers an avid reader and writer from childhood, a pastor’s daughter who played piano and organ, taught music, and took joy in her grandchildren’s musical pursuits.
Words shared at home
She devoted herself to her children’s education and later helped her daughters with home education. Writing gave her another way to share what she was learning: words shaped into poetry that could be sung to the familiar tunes of the church.
A friendship with an experienced editor and church music director gave Pat and her husband advice and encouragement as they prepared to share her songs more widely. Pat and the editor shared a desire for hymnody with devotional and theological depth, with words that a congregation could sing together.
A song through sorrow
In her foreword to Heritage Psalter, Pat’s daughter Lorilynn Hogsed recalls her mother returning to the Psalms in sorrow, illness, and prayer. Their language gave Pat a way to reflect on God’s promises and share her response in song.
Pat went to be with her Savior in 2023. Her family continues to share her writing in Heritage Hymns, Heritage Psalter, and Alphabet Hymns. Her poems grew from her own devotional reading and now invite others to read, pray, and sing on their own or with others.
Her essay Let Us Worship explains the convictions behind her writing: the place of words and music in worship, the participation of the congregation, and praise directed toward God.
Read Let Us Worship