Have you ever felt laid aside from usefulness to God? Have your circumstances in life ever seemed an immense drawback, preventing you from actively serving in the usual ways? Perhaps you are ill, housebound – or frail and elderly. Perhaps you suffer sleeplessness, or chronic pain. You’re unable to visit people, and perform practical kindly, womanly services in their homes. You can’t share the gospel, teach – or maybe even read much. In short, you wonder how in the world you could ever be a useful Christian at all. This story is about just such a Christian woman – a woman who felt deeply the frustrations of sickness, and who often longed for really useful service. But God, who has His ways of using our very weaknesses for His own glory, used this woman’s circumstances in a very special and lasting way.

An Evangelical Background⤒🔗

Charlotte Elliott was born on March 18, 1789. She was a four-month-old baby when the French Revolution began – but despite the turbulent times she lived in, Charlotte’s life was quiet and uneventful. The granddaughter of Henry Venn, a clergyman and friend of leading evangelical politicians like William Wilberforce, she grew up in Clapham, the village near London where her uncle ministered as vicar and where these politicians also lived. She had many opportunities to hear the faith talked about; and to see it lived out in zealous and tireless ways.

Like most young women of her background, she grew up cultivating a number of interests and gifts – “accomplishments,” as Jane Austen’s contemporary women characters called them. Charlotte’s talents were portrait painting and the writing of humorous verse. She was good with words. She was also a happy, rather carefree girl. But this was to change in her twenties, for by the time she was thirty years old her health had failed seriously – to the point that she was a bed­ridden invalid for life. With this came a deep despondency – a despair that today would be called “depression.”

She Came as She Was←⤒🔗

But God has servants for just such times as these. In 1822 (when Charlotte was 32 and by this time living with a married brother in the fashionable seaside resort of Brighton) a noted Swiss evangelist, Dr Cesar Malan, visited the Elliott home. This visit proved the turning-point in Charlotte’s life. Dr Malan talked with her about her discouragements, and the heart of her problems – which were spiritual. As a result, Charlotte came to a true saving faith in Christ, and for the rest of her long life, she celebrated May 9^th – the day her friend had led her to faith – as her spiritual birthday. The central truth that Dr Malan impressed upon her was this: “You must come just as you are, a sinner, to the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world.” It does not matter that you are an invalid – come as you are. What matters is that you are a sinner, in need of salvation, and you must come to the Lamb of God who will take away your sin.

It was well that Charlotte came to love the Lord Jesus as she did, only two years into her confinement to home and bed. For 50 years more she endured periods of great physical suffering. It was her faith that gave her life purpose; and transformed what would otherwise have been “useless” years into a lifetime of valuable service to Him who gave Himself for us. But they were never easy times. Of her afflictions she once wrote:

He knows, and He alone, what it is, day after day, hour after hour, to fight against bodily feelings of almost overpowering weakness, languor and exhaustion, to resolve not to yield to slothfulness, depression and instability, such as the body causes me to long to indulge, but to rise every morning determined to take for my motto, ‘If a man will come after Me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow Me.’ Another time she wrote, 'God sees, God guides, God guards me. His grace surrounds me, and His voice continually bids me to be happy and holy in His service just as I am.'

A Special Service for Her←⤒🔗

The service that God enabled her to do at home, even on her sick bed, was one aptly suited to her talents. Charlotte had been in the habit of writing verse before she became ill; and it was this skill that she turned over to Christ’s service once she knew Him as her Saviour. By 1836 she had written over 100 hymns, poetry for singing praise to God. But the hymn that has made Charlotte’s name famous among women hymn-writers – the one in our own Psalter Hymnal (No. 424) – has as its theme the very words Dr Malan spoke to her in her illness and discouragement

The specific circumstances of this hymn, written in 1836, were these. All her family had gone off to a bazaar, a fund-raising project in aid of a school her brother, Henry (the clergyman) wanted to start for the children of poor clergymen. Charlotte had been left alone at home, unwell, and was a little sad at being, as usual, left out of active good work. For her own encouragement she began to dwell on the great certainties of her salvation – her Lord, His power, His promises. Then, Dr Malan’s words in her mind, she realized a sudden sense of peace and contentment. Taking her pen, she wrote the following verses:

Just as I am, without one plea
But that Thy blood was shed for me,
And that Thou bidd’st me come to Thee,
O Lamb of God, I come! I come!

Just as I am, and waiting not
To rid my soul of one dark blot,
To Thee whose blood can cleanse each spot,
O Lamb of God, I come! I come!

Just as I am, tho’ tossed about
With many a conflict, many a doubt,
Fightings and fears within, without,
O Lamb of God, I come! I come!

Just as I am, poor, wretched, blind –
Sight, riches, healing of the mind,
Yea, all I need in Thee to find –
O Lamb of God, I come! I come!

Just as I am, Thou wilt receive,
Wilt welcome, pardon, cleanse, relieve;
Because Thy promise I believe,
O Lamb of God, I come! I come!

As the day wore on, her sister-in-law came in to see how she was, and to bring her news of the bazaar. Charlotte showed her what she had written; and Mrs Elliott asked for a copy, taking it back to the bazaar with her. As it turned out, the use of this hymn spread far and wide, and in the end the royalties it earned raised more money for her brother’s school than the entire bazaar did. Such is the way God sometimes uses our talents, in our weakness.

Encouraging Others and Being Encouraged Herself←⤒🔗

This hymn has become a very famous one, widely sung around the world wherever British hymnody has been taken. It has been translated into almost every European language, and many other languages as well. Countless people have been encouraged by its message, as they have sung it or read the words as poetry. After her death, over 1000 letters were found in one of Charlotte’s boxes. She had kept these letters because they had encouraged her so much. They were from individuals all over the world, thanking her for what this hymn had done for them. Her minister brother wrote at this time, “In the course of a long ministry, I hope to have been permitted to see some fruit of my labours; but I feel more has been done by a single hymn of my sister’s.”

And what of the message of the hymn? Simply, it is to recognize our sinful, weak and needy state and come – to the only One who can forgive, heal and help us – the One who also bids us come. It is important to keep in mind that this hymn is the product of an age in which most Christians really did believe in the reality of sin. Churches taught that people needed salvation because they sinned: and that Christians need continuing grace because they still sin. Every week, morning and evening, Charlotte and her family prayed this prayer of confession:

Almighty and most merciful Father, we have erred and strayed from Thy ways like lost sheep. We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts. We have offended against thy holy laws ... And there is no health in us.

But for the Grace of God←⤒🔗

This was a time in the history of the Church when Christians understood that men and women are sinful and rotten to the core, and that sinners are completely dependent on the grace of God to bring them to salvation. Of themselves, they are unable to do anything that will bring them a jot closer to the kingdom. Unless God be working in the heart, there can be no acknowledgement of sin, and no power to take steps of faith.

When Charlotte wrote “Just as I am”, she did not mean what I fear congregations singing these words in later times have sometimes understood. Charlotte’s hymn has been very popular in the American revival tradition: that tradition which has seen the holding of special evangelistic meetings where stirring preachers have warned of hell, and urged, pleaded with, and pressured sinners to step forward from their seats to move to the front of the room and record their decision for Christ. Many a time, the singing of “Just as I am” has been sung over and over at the conclusion of such messages, adding to the pressure on people to come forward. “Just as I am ...  O Lamb of God, I come!” can, in this context, be re­interpreted to mean “I, a sinner, am coming forward to make a decision for Christ.” But this is not what Charlotte would have meant. She was not writing of any need to make a bold decision to come – rather, it was the response of faith in a heart knowing full well it was undeserving, but had been granted faith to come. It was a hymn of faithful, repentant obedience; not of decisionism.

A Hymn Wrongly Used←⤒🔗

But there is another misunderstanding of these words that I fear may be afoot today, in this age so affected by popular psychology. “Just as I am” appears to have taken on a new cast of meaning in the twentieth century. We have learned to parrot – and even to adopt the idea – of “accepting people just as they are” – signifying that no matter what they are like, no matter how unlovely, unlikeable or offensive – we are to love them unjudgementally, “warts and all.” And this (is how the thinking goes) God accepts us. So we may come to Him, “just as we are...” But this is true only in a very limited sense. God does indeed come to us when we are “dead in our trespasses and sin” – just as unlovely as we could possibly be. And then He gives us faith, and repentance, and clothes us in Christ, so that we are then as lovely as could possibly be – in His sight. But there is no way we could come before God “just as I am” if it were not in a spirit of complete repentance. The first response of any believer in the Scripture record who really does gain a glimpse of God’s glorious presence is “Woe is me, a sinner ... I am undone.” (See Isaiah Ch. 6, for instance). And this is what Charlotte’s words mean. Notice the words of the first, second and fifth verses. God wants us to come to Him repentantly, to be cleansed and forgiven, not accepted just as we are.

The Meaning for Us Today←⤒🔗

So what of the message of these words to us, Christian women today? First of all, we can thank the writer of them for her own example of faith. She realised that she could be of use to God even on her sick bed. She had enough knowledge of the Scriptures to understand that prayer, and the written word, may be of use to the servants of Christ. And so she did what she was physically capable of. We too, today, sick or tired, housebound or in hospital, can do the same; in just the same spirit – and, who knows, with similar effectiveness.

Secondly, we can learn from the example of those who wrote to thank Charlotte for her hymns during her lifetime. So often we take for granted the fact that people know how grateful we are for what they have done. How seldom it is that people take the trouble to acknowledge those whose far-off deeds have made a useful impact on their lives, perhaps stirring them up to “love and good deeds” through a book. Have you ever thought of writing to an author via his or her publisher? It is easily done, and such letters can sometimes be a tremendous encouragement to the writer, who might never otherwise know how their words are being used of God. Think of those 1000 letters, kept in that box by Charlotte, and found, after her death...

Think on these things, next time you sing “Just as I am”...