“Just As I Am” - Charlotte Elliott

1789–1871

What does it take to be worthy of God? Do you have to stop some bad habit before you can come before him? If you need to be forgiven for something, do you need to do something good first before you ask?

Or does God take you just the way you are, without your efforts to fix yourself?

“Just As I Am” is a hymn that helps answer those questions. Its author, Charlotte Elliott, came to a point in her life when she realized she wanted to be a Christian, to know the saving grace of Christ and have a relationship with God. She had conversations with family friend Dr. Caesar Malan, a minister, and she expressed to him that she wasn’t sure how to go about becoming a Christian. She wondered if she needed to fix a few things in her life before entering into a relationship with Christ.

Dr. Malan gave her this simple, freeing advice: “Come just as you are.” Charlotte believed her friend’s words. She accepted Christ, just as she was.

Of the many things Charlotte was, she was also an invalid. In her early thirties she fell ill, and this left her weak and depressed for much of her life. Becoming a Christian didn’t automatically cure her of feeling depressed and useless, and she often struggled with those feelings. Out of that struggle came “Just As I Am.”

As the story goes, one day her family and friends went to a fund-raiser to raise money for a school for underprivileged children. Too sick to go with them, Charlotte stayed home, feeling useless because she was unable to help raise money for the cause. In her depression, she turned to writing and penned the words, “Just as I am, without one plea, but that Thy blood was shed for me.”

When you need to come to God, whether it’s for the first time as a new Christian or the thousandth time to ask for forgiveness, God says, “Come to me, just as you are.” Are you holding back on coming to God because you think you have to fix things first? Don’t. Come as you are.

Those the Father has given me will come to me, and I will never reject them.

John 6:37