I didn’t grow up in a hymnal singing church and only recently discovered hymns of the faith. I have been enthralled with their beautiful melodies and rich biblical truths.
As I learn new hymns, I will post them on the blog with the lyrics, music, and their stories. In sharing these hymns, I hope you will discover or rediscover this beautiful heritage of Christianity and that it will inspire your faith in Christ.
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.
Colossians 3:16
Turn your eyes Upon Jesus was written and composed by Helen Howarth Lemmel in 1922.
Lemmel was born in England in 1863 to a Wesleyan/Methodist minister and loved music. Her parents encouraged her musical gifts and provided her with the best vocal teachers of the time. When Lemmel was 12 years old, her father immigrated to America. She rapidly became known as a gifted singer and traveled throughout the Midwest to perform in churches.
She returned to Europe for four years to study vocal music in Germany. It is said she got married to a European who dumped her when she became blind (it may or may not be true).
When Helen was 55, she read a sentence in a gospel tract titled “Focused” that was written by the missionary, Isabella Lillias Trotter. It said, “So then, turn your eyes upon Him, look full into His face, and you will find that the things of earth will acquire a strange new dimness.”
These words deeply impressed Lemmel. She later said, “Suddenly, as if commanded to stop and listen, I stood still, and singing in my soul and spirit was the chorus, 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 nonetheless dictated by the Holy Spirit.”
Lemmel first published the hymn as a pamphlet in 1918 in London. Then 1922, it was included in a collection titled “Glad Songs,” which featured sixty-seven songs of her other songs. In 1924, Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus appeared in an American collection titled “Gospel Truth in Song.” It has been featured in numerous hymnals and translated in many languages since then.
Lemmel wrote more than 500 hymns and poems and composed several children’s musical pieces in her lifetime. She died in Seattle, Washington 1961, thirteen days before her 98th birthday.
Full lyrics of Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus
O soul, are you weary and troubled?
No light in the darkness you see?
There’s light for a look at the Savior,
And life more abundant and free.
(Refrain:) Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
In the light of His glory and grace.
Through death into life everlasting
He passed, and we follow Him there;
O’er us sin no more hath dominion
For more than conqu’rors we are!
(Refrain)
His Word shall not fail you, He promised;
Believe Him and all will be well;
Then go to a world that is dying,
His perfect salvation to tell!
(Refrain)
Lyrics and story from: Morgan, Robert. Then Sings My Soul. Nashville, Thomas Nelson. Page 283
