Many have contacted me over the past few days to ask about a poem I recited on Sunday during my message. It is a poem entitled “Once I Prayed,” written by Helen McDowell. I am a big fan of words (you’ve probably noticed). I love how words flow when used properly, and poetry is essentially the flow of well-chosen words to press home a point.
One of my favorite poets is a woman whom many have never heard. Her name is Charlotte Elliot, and she lived a life that, when properly considered, can teach us quite a bit about our own lives.
When Charlotte was a young woman living in Clapham, England, a traveling evangelist by the name of Henri Malan was assigned to sit at her table during a gathering in her city. Mr. Malan spoke with her and told her near the end of the evening that he hoped she was a Christian. Charlotte was offended that he casually mentioned such a thought to her (speaking of religion publicly was deemed inappropriate in the England of Charlotte’s day). She replied that she would rather not discuss religious issues at the table, and Malan dropped the inquiry, apologizing if he had offended her.
Weeks later, however, Charlotte found that she could not shake the question. By God’s grace, she encountered Malan again and, dismissing the breach of etiquette, told him that she could not get his question out of her head. Again, setting aside proper public discourse, she asked if he might explain to her how one found Jesus as Savior. “You have nothing of merit to bring to God,” he told her, “You must come as you are.” Charlotte had spent most of her life trying to perform noble deeds for God, and yet it had left her cold toward him. Now, with Malan’s words, she found hope in Christ and her life was changed.
Not many years later Charlotte was struck with a disabling disease. She would spend the next 50 years of her life as an invalid. “My heavenly Father knows,” she wrote, “and he alone, what it is, day after day, and hour after hour, to fight against bodily feelings of almost overpowering weakness and languor and exhaustion, to resolve, as he enables me to do, not to yield to the slothfulness, the depression, the irritability, such as a body causes me to long to indulge, but to rise every morning determined on taking this for my motto, ‘if anyone will come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me.’”
After thirteen years of fighting her good fight, Charlotte sat down and wrote a poem that was transposed into verse as a hymn—you probably know it some 200 years later. Here is one of the verses: “Just as I am, without one plea, but that Thy blood was shed for me, and that Thou biddest me come to Thee, O Lamb of God, I come, I come.” This poem constituted only one of over 150 she authored, but it is her most famous, and rightfully so. William Wordsworth loved her work, and his daughter insisted that this very poem be read to her repeatedly while she lay on her deathbed. Billy Graham used it as an invitation hymn at the close of most of his crusades. It would be difficult to estimate how many men and women over the years have committed their lives to Christ while this hymn played in the background.
Charlotte died in 1871, but not before she had demonstrated in word and deed what it means to be transformed by Jesus Christ. She understood suffering, and she understood that one’s physical condition does not determine how one might be used by God. She took what God had given her, even when he had given others so much more, and used it for his glory, refusing to allow self-pity and pain to keep her from using her gifts. She wrote beautiful poetry, and although most of it is forgotten in our day, it still resonates with this pastor who must empathize with many who suffer daily in life. Her poetry teaches me to be grateful for what I have been given and careful never to take for granted God’s grace or his gifts. Ms. Elliot’s poems are not easy to come by, but some of her works can still be found online and on Amazon if, like me, you have a love for old poetry.
Grace and peace,
Pastor Jym