What led Annette Dickman to compose the hymn ‘Bread of Life, Living Water’

LAYTON, Utah — The author and composer of one of the new hymns included in “Hymns — For Home and Church” recently told Church News about her question that led to the answer from God that led to the composition of “Bread of Life, Living Water.”

On a Sunday afternoon in 1967, Annette Dickman and her husband sat at the bedside of her 10-year-old son at a Salt Lake City hospital. It had been a very hard couple of weeks. After emergency surgery for a burst appendix, her son’s body was wracked with pain, and she felt helpless.

“I just wanted to take it on myself so he wouldn’t have to,” she recalled. About that time, two priesthood holders entered the room carrying the sacrament. “The Spirit, when those sweet brethren brought in the sacrament, was one of the most powerful things I’ve ever experienced — Jesus Christ knew exactly how I was feeling.”

The words of Alma 7:11-12, emphasizing the Savior’s capacity to succor His people in their pains and afflictions, came to her mind.

Partaking of the sacrament that day, she gained a deeper understanding of the Savior’s infinite love and understanding of her son’s pain, as well as what she and her husband were feeling.

That sacred realization became one of many spiritual turning points in her life.

A lifelong desire for wholeness

Though her family moved frequently during her childhood, Logan, Utah, held significant meaning for Dickman, where she was born and her grandparents lived.

At age 9, the family returned for a few years while her dad attended graduate studies at Utah State University there. She cherishes the memory of walking to and from piano lessons that were on the other side of the steep hill where the Logan Utah Temple stands. After every lesson, Dickman would spend a little time “snapping snapdragons” and sitting on the grass outside the temple.

“I would look at the temple and think, ‘I will never do anything that will keep me from going in there,’” she said. “That just was kind of my mantra.”

When her dad finished his degree, they moved again, but after high school she returned to earn her degree in music at USU. While there, she met her husband. Together they raised five children in Layton, Utah, where they still live and currently serve as stake senior missionary specialists.

Dickman said those days were full of blessings alongside deep challenges. Dickman wrestled with perfectionism and accompanying depression.

“I’ve had an intense desire all of my life to be more whole and holy,” she explained.

As a young mother, she often arrived at church frazzled after struggling to get her children ready alone while her husband served in the bishopric.

“I used to worry a lot about being worthy to take the sacrament,” she remembered. “When I got there, I would think, ‘I can’t take the sacrament because I just yelled at my children.’”

Through years of scripture study, prayer and tender experiences, she came to a new understanding. “Nobody can be perfect,” she testified, emphasizing the importance of remembering and internalizing the need for the Redeemer. “He wants us to partake of the sacrament. … It’s such a blessing to always remember Him and that we get to do that every week.”

The hymn’s creation

In her search to understand what it means to be worthy, Dickman studied the symbols in the ordinance of the sacrament.

“Bread feeds us — water gives life,” she recalled pondering. “He is the source of all life. We can’t live without water. We can’t live without the Savior either — in mortal life or in eternal life.”

The phrase “bread of life, living water” was set to music in her thoughts, and she felt like writing a hymn — but the rest came slowly. Dickman said she continued to study.

She learned the Hebrew meaning of “be ye therefore perfect” (Matthew 5:48) signifies becoming complete or whole. “I was able to move from worrying about being perfect to the idea of being complete,” she said. This shift in focus helped her understand the journey was one from “whole to holy.”

Piece by piece, over two years, the hymn took shape. The chorus came first: “Feed my soul, fill my heart. Lord, give me new life in Thee, and make me whole — complete and holy — bound to Thee eternally.”

‘His process becomes our process’

The three verses of “Bread of Life, Living Water” mirror Christ’s process and offer an invitation into one’s own journey. Verse 1 centers in Gethsemane, verse 2 at Calvary, and verse 3 on a person partaking of the sacrament — where His sacrifice becomes personal.

“His process becomes our process,” Dickman said. “We come before the altar, offering Him our broken hearts. Unless we take it and apply it, it is meaningless for us.”

Listen to the hymn here.

For her, the hymn was not just something she wrote but something God gave her. “It was such a precious blessing and a gift that He gave personally to me to teach me and to strengthen me and to help me become more whole,” she said.

She hopes others find the same hope, recognizing that “it’s only through the Savior” that all trials and challenges can be overcome.

“They can find everything they need in Him,” she said.