“Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus” - Helen Howarth Lemmel

1864–1961

Perhaps you’re at a point where, when people ask, “How are you?” your usual response is “Busy!” We might imagine that Helen Howarth Lemmel had that kind of life too. The daughter of a Wesleyan Methodist pastor, as a child she came with her family from England to America. With music as her passion, she studied voice in Germany, performed as a soloist throughout the Midwest, and later taught voice at Moody Bible Institute in Chicago and the Bible Institute of Los Angeles. For a time, she also served as a music critic for a major newspaper. Helen also wrote hundreds of songs, both lyrics and music.

One day in 1918, in the midst of this busy life, she was handed a small booklet with the title Focused—written by another multitalented woman, the artist-turned-missionary Isabella Lilias Trotter. In it was a challenge to pay full attention to Jesus, putting away other distractions.

Helen got the message . . . and created the song we know as “Turn Your Eyes upon Jesus.” She recounted the process later: “Suddenly, as if commanded to stop and listen, I stood still, and singing in my soul and spirit was the chorus of the hymn with not one conscious moment of putting word to word to make rhyme, or note to note to make melody. . . . The verses were written . . . the same week, after the usual manner of composition, but none the less dictated by the Holy Spirit.”

Within a few years, the song was published in England and America and was finding considerable popularity—especially at the Keswick Bible Conferences. Helen’s full life continued until she was ninety-seven. And it is said that in her later years, she developed a unique reply to the common question, how are you?

“I am doing well,” she would say, “in the things that count.”

Perhaps you’re humming along these days at three speeds: busy, really busy, and crazy. Our world doesn’t seem to be slowing down much. But when we’re busy with many responsibilities, obligations, and distractions, we often lose our focus on the things that matter most. Turn your attention back to Jesus, and let him put the rest of your life back in order.

How are you? Doing well, you could say, in the things that count.

Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.

Matthew 6:33