It would be an understatement to say Susanna Annesley came from a large family. She was the twenty-fifth child of a well-known London minister. She was also an intelligent, deeply spiritual girl. Susanna’s daily prayer was “Dear God, guide me. Help me do Thy will. Make my life count.”
Susanna lived in fear that her father would be arrested for his preaching. He was a preacher in the Dissenters’ church. The Dissenters were Christians who worshiped God in their own way rather than following the rules of the Church of England. In the late 1600’s it was against the law to preach for any church other than the Church of England. Dissenters had been branded, had their ears cut off, and been burned alive. Once, soldiers came to the Annesley’s home and took many of their belongings as a fine because of her father’s preaching.
Susanna dearly loved and respected her father. From him she learned to study and pray at the same time every day—a habit she would one day teach her own children. When she was nineteen, Susanna married Samuel Wesley. Samuel was not only a very committed minister, but he too was highly intelligent and well educated. He also loved to write. Unfortunately for Susanna, he was not a practical man.
Their first home was drab and tiny. Samuel’s job at a small church in a village near London paid very little. They soon had a baby boy and named him Samuel after his father. Susanna prayed that God would use their son and the children that would come later to make a difference in the world.
After a few years, Samuel got a job in a bigger church in the country, one hundred miles from London. Although his pay was better and a house was provided for them, the move was difficult for Susanna. One hundred miles was a long way to be separated from family and friends when the only means of travel was by horse and carriage. She might never see them again.
Samuel spent most of his free time writing magazine articles and poetry, so it was up to Susanna to see that their growing family was clothed and fed. But in spite of Samuel’s shortcomings, Susanna loved him.
Her strong faith saw her through many hardships. Three of their first seven children died. Her oldest son had never talked. On top of that, Samuel made an important man angry by telling the woman he was living with is not his wife and what they were doing was sinful. This meant he we sure to lose his job.
During those dark days, Susanna turned to God for help. She was given a ray of joy when little Samuel finally began to talk when he was five years old. She began teaching him to read and found he had a very quick mind and memorized easily.
Then her husband was offered a job in another town. It paid better still, and a big house on three acres of land was included. Now they could grow their own food. But there were moving expenses, their growing family needed more furniture. They also needed to buy equipment and animals before they could do any farming. All of this put them in debt equal to a year’s salary.
The unschooled church people in the new place didn’t get along well with the Wesleys, who were educated and had famous and important ancestors. They also didn’t like Samuel’s political ideas and his loyalty to the king. A lonely Susanna turned to God for comfort.
One time while Samuel was away, the family was kept awake by gunshots and an angry mob’s pounding and shouting. Because Susanna was recovering from giving birth, a nurse was taking care of her baby across the street. When the mob finally left, the tired nurse fell into a deep sleep and rolled over on the baby and smothered it.
Some time later, an angry church member demanded that Samuel pay him some money he owed him right away. Samuel couldn’t, so the man had him put into prison for three months. While he was gone, one of his enemies killed all their cows, Susanna’s main means of support. Friends helped her and paid Samuels’s debt.
In 1702, a fire ruined two-thirds of their home. Rebuilding the house put them deeper in debt. Seven years later, another fire destroyed nearly everything they owned.
As if constant money troubles and problems with the townspeople weren’t enough, seven more of Susanna’s children died. Of their nineteen children, only nine lived to be adults.
Through it all, Susanna spent six hours a day teaching them. Determined that her children would learn their duty toward God and their neighbours, she wrote three religious textbooks for them. Her teaching was so effective that every one of them grew to love learning and godly living. Somehow, Susanna managed to spend two hours a day in her own Bible reading and prayer.
In the end, Susanna’s teaching, her daily prayers for her children, and her own godly example made a great impact on her world. While her sons John and Charles were studying at college, they started a club with other students who wanted to know and serve God better. The group became known as Methodists, because they had methods for praying, fasting, and studying the Bible at set times.
Later, tens of thousands would hear John and Charles. John led the Methodist revival in England, which turned people back to the true gospel. And Charles carried the message to countless churches through the hymns
