Charlotte Elliott was a talented artist, a humorous poet, and a carefree youth.

But when she contracted an illness at age thirty, she lay in bed with crippling fatigue. Three years later, when her body had not recovered and she was despondent, an evangelist visited her home. He counseled her out from her depression and into Jesus’ arms. She gave what strength she had left to God.

God put strength into her pen. She wrote over 150 songs for Him throughout her life.

One particular hymn she penned to raise funds for a school for poor clergymen’s daughters. “Just as I Am” raised more walls of the school than all the other fundraising efforts combined. Today, it is one of the most known, most loved songs in the Church.

Charlotte confessed, “He knows, and He alone, what it is, day after day… to fight against bodily feelings of almost overpowering weakness, languor and exhaustion, to resolve not to yield to slothfulness, depression and instability… 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.’”

Charlotte lay in bed for nearly fifty years. But her spirit grew stronger and in her weakness, others found Jesus.