Just As I Am

 Good Morning Friends,

Here we sit 'between the holidays'.

If you're like me, you've had plenty of opportunity to (over)indulge yourselves with both love and food over Christmas. So many Kodak moments....

By the way, does that communicate with you younger folks out there? Back in the Dark Ages, when pictures came from a thing called ‘film’, there was a company (Kodak) that wanted you to buy and expose as much film as possible. So they encouraged us to see everything in life as something significant, deserving of a picture … a ‘Kodak moment’.

I want to hesitate on that thought for just a second, and then illustrate it through the life of an amazing woman who learned that Kodak moments don’t require anything out of the ordinary; that you can achieve what God intended for you to be “Just As You Are”.

It’s in times like these, ‘between the holidays’ that Tony and I are always tempted to think maybe we’re being a little too lazy.  The ministries that so wonderfully take up our time all year are now on hold until after the hustle and bustle of Christmas and New Year’s is over. Oh, we enjoy the feasts, the fun and family, but we can’t help but feel a tinge of guilt that we’re not on the battlefield, sword in hand, charging into the breach as our Lord commands.

This ‘lag’ between the end and beginning of the year always affects us this way.  We had missionary friends years ago who said “This is God’s timing.  It’s our season to ‘mend our nets’ and get ready for the new challenges the next year will bring”.  

So there’s the kicker; let’s hit the pause button, take a breath, and read about a remarkable lady who accomplished so much, but never saw it in her lifetime. What follows is rather long, so you may want to save it for another time, but please read through it and see if you can agree with me that we may be making our life a lot more complicated than it needs to be, I quote now from a Facebook post that was taken from a variety of biographies and compiled together.

She was an invalid who felt useless to God. From her sickbed, she wrote one  hymn in 1835. Billy Graham used it to convert millions—and probably never knew her name.

This was 1822. Charlotte Elliott was 33 years old, lying in bed in Brighton, England, battling chronic illness that had stolen her strength, her independence, her future.

She was angry. Angry at God for the illness. Angry at herself for being useless. Angry that everyone around her was serving God while she could barely leave her room.

Then a Swiss evangelist named César Malan visited her family's home. And in one conversation, he gave her the answer that would echo through two centuries.

"How can I come to God?" she asked him. "I have nothing to bring. I can do nothing for Him."

Malan's answer was simple: "Come to Him just as you are. Just as you are. Not when you're better. Not when you're useful. Not when you have something to offer. Now. As you are. Sick, angry, doubtful, useless.

God wants you anyway.”

The words struck Charlotte deeply. Not immediately —she continued struggling for months. But slowly, the truth settled into her soul. God didn't need her productivity. He wanted her.

Thirteen years later, in 1835, Charlotte was still an invalid. Still mostly bedridden. Still was unable to do the active ministry work she wished she could do.

Her brother Henry was organizing a charity bazaar to raise money for a school for daughters of poor clergy. Everyone in the family was helping…. planning, organizing, setting up tables, preparing items to sell.

Everyone except Charlotte, who lay in her room, unable to help. The old feelings of uselessness returned. What good was she? What could she contribute? Then she remembered Malan's words: "Come to Him just as you are."

That night, in 1835, Charlotte Elliott wrote a hymn. Not a grand theological treatise. Not a complicated melody. Just simple words expressing what she'd learned:

Just as I am, without one plea,

But that Thy blood was shed for me,

And that Thou bidst me come to Thee,

O Lamb of God, I come, I come.

She wrote six verses total. Each began with "Just as I am" and ended with "I come, I come."

Charlotte's brother published the hymn in a collection called, "The Invalid's Hymn Book" in 1836. It began circulating in England, then America, then globally.

The hymn resonated with people who felt unworthy, inadequate, too broken to approach God. It told them what Charlotte had learned: God doesn't wait for you to fix yourself. He meets you exactly where you are.

Charlotte Elliott lived another 36 years after writing the hymn, dying September 22, 1871, at age 82. She wrote over 150 hymns during her lifetime, but "Just As I Am" was the one that endured. She never knew how far her words would travel.

A century after she wrote it, in the 1930s, a young preacher named Billy Graham was beginning his ministry. 

He would preach — first to small groups, then larger crowds, eventually to stadium-filling crusades broadcast worldwide— and he developed a pattern.

He would preach. Then he would invite people to make a decision for Christ. And as people walked forward to commit their lives to God, a hymn would play.

That hymn was "Just As I Am."

For over 60 years of ministry, from the 1940s through the early 2000s, Billy Graham closed every crusade with "Just As I Am." The hymn became synonymous with his invitation—so much that many people called it, "Billy Graham's song," not realizing it had been written by an English invalid a century earlier.

Millions of people walked forward during that hymn. In stadiums across America, Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia. In person and on television and radio broadcasts reaching hundreds of millions more.

How many people committed their lives to Christ while hearing Charlotte Elliott's words? Impossible to count. Millions, certainly. Perhaps tens of millions over Graham's 60-year ministry.

Charlotte Elliott, the invalid who felt useless to God, wrote words that would accompany more conversions than perhaps any other hymn in history.

But Charlotte never knew. She died in 1871, decades before Billy Graham was born, never imagining her simple verses would echo through stadiums filled with 100,000 people.

The irony is beautiful: Charlotte wrote the hymn because she felt she had nothing to offer God. The hymn became one of the most powerful tools for evangelism in modern Christian history.

Her "uselessness" produced usefulness beyond measure.

Today, "Just As I Am" remains one of Christianity's most beloved hymns. It's been translated into dozens of languages. It's been sung at countless church services, revivals, evangelistic events.

Most people who sing it have never heard of Charlotte Elliott, nor of César Malan, whose words inspired her. 

But they know the words of the hymn. And the words still carry the same message they did in 1835:

You don't have to be strong. You don't have to be perfect. You don't have to have everything figured out.

Come as you are. God wants you anyway.

Marsha again: The invalid who felt worthless wrote words worth more than she could imagine. She came to God just as she was: sick, weak, doubting. And from that honest brokenness came a hymn that would bring millions to do the same.

And so as we face 2026, let's think about how God can use us, in whatever way He chooses!

Till next time! 

Marsha