Encouraged by her grand­mo­ther, a god­ly wo­man who loved the mu­sic of the soul as ex­pressed in verse, Avis wrote her first po­em at age ten. Then one Sun­day morn­ing in Moody Church, as she list­ened to a new song by Har­ry Loes, the Lord re­mind­ed her that the tal­ent en­trusted to her be­longed to Him. Her im­med­i­ate long­ing to ex­press His love and bless­ing re­sult­ed in two hymns. One of them, That Is Far Enough for Me, was quick­ly set to mu­sic by Dan­iel Town­er, then di­rect­or of mu­sic for the Moo­dy Bi­ble In­sti­tute.

In 1917, Avis mar­ried Er­nest C. Christ­i­an­sen, who la­ter be­came vice pres­i­dent in charge of in­vest­ments for Moo­dy Bi­ble In­sti­tute. In spite of ful­fill­ing the ma­ny du­ties of a bu­sy home­maker, she con­tin­ued to write with un­fail­ing zeal. In ad­di­tion to her hymns, she pub­lished two books of po­e­try:

• His Faith­ful­ness, 1949
• Avis Christ­iansen’s Most-Loved Po­ems, 1962

In the fore­word to her first book of po­e­try, pas­tor and au­thor H. A. Iron­side wrote:

Avis B. Christ­ian­sen is the gift­ed au­thor of ma­ny of our sweet­est gos­pel songs. By means of these her name is known around the world, for ma­ny of these de­light­ful ly­rics have been trans­lat­ed in­to var­i­ous lan­guages. She is a mod­est, re­tir­ing per­son whom few get to know be­yond the cir­cle of her im­med­i­ate fam­i­ly and friends. With a ve­ry keen ap­pre­hen­sion of spir­i­tu­al re­al­i­ties, and a clear un­der­stand­ing of the great truths re­vealed in the Word of God, her hymns and po­ems are em­i­nent­ly Script­ur­al and soul-up­lift­ing.

• Hustad, pp. 220-1
• Reynolds, p. 267

1. Blessèd Cal­va­ry
2. Blessèd Re­deem­er
3. Fill All My Vi­sion © 1940
4. How Can It Be? © 1961
5. I Know His Love Is Mine
6. I Know I’ll See Je­sus Some Day
7. I Must Have Je­sus with Me © 1940
8. I’m Abid­ing in Ca­naan Land
9. It Is Glo­ry Just to Walk with Him
10. I’ve Found a Re­fuge
11. Jesus Has Lift­ed Me
12. Jesus Is a Friend of Mine
13. Jesus! Won­der­ful Name!
14. Lost in His Love
15. Love Found a Way
16. Only Glo­ry By and By
17. Only Je­sus
18. Only One Life © 1937
19. Precious Hid­ing Place
20. Precious Mel­o­dy
21. This Ve­ry Same Je­sus
22. That Is Far Enough for Me
23. Trusting Thee More
24. Victory in Je­sus
25. We Shall Ga­ther in the Morn­ing
26. What Must I Do?