03/09/2026
THE STORY BEHIND "AMAZING GRACE"
There is a reason “Amazing Grace” feels different when you hear it.
The man who wrote it, John Newton, was once deeply involved in the transatlantic slave trade. He worked on slave ships and later became a captain, participating in a brutal system that tore countless Africans from their homes, families and freedom.
Then, on March 10, 1748, Newton’s ship was caught in a violent storm in the Atlantic. The waves battered the vessel, and he feared he would not survive. In the darkness, he cried out to God for mercy.
He survived.
That storm became a turning point in his life. Newton eventually left the slave trade, entered the Christian ministry and became an outspoken abolitionist. He later supported William Wilberforce in the campaign to end slavery in Britain.
In 1772, Newton wrote the words that would become one of the world's most enduring hymns:
“Amazing grace! How sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me.”
The words were personal. Newton knew what it meant to be lost. He knew guilt. He knew shame and he believed he had found redemption.
Years later, he would look back on his life and say, “Though my memory is fading, I remember two things very clearly: I am a great sinner, and Christ is a great Saviour.”
That is the power of “Amazing Grace.”
It is not simply a song about finding God but a song about the possibility of transformation, about a broken life finding a new direction, about guilt giving way to redemption, and about the belief that no one is so far gone that change is impossible.
More than 250 years later, millions still sing it and perhaps that is why the hymn continues to move people so deeply because somewhere between the first note and the final verse, it reminds us that even the darkest chapter of a person's life does not necessarily have to be the last.
