TURN YOUR EYES UPON JESUS, was written by Helen Lemmel but the real story is about two remarkable women who had much in common; they were contemporaries; both with artistic talents that merged to create one of the most loved spiritual songs of the 19th century. But they had never met.
In 1875, at the age of 12, Helen’s family emigrated to the United States. She was a gifted musician, songwriter, and singer.
In 1907, at the age of 43, she went to Germany, for four years of intensive vocal training, where she met and married her husband. They moved back to the United States in 1911 and she continued singing in the Gospel music circuits. Eventually, she became the vocal music teacher at the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago.
But then tragedy struck. She developed an affliction that resulted in blindness. Her husband couldn’t cope with the thought of a blind wife, so he abandoned her. She had nowhere to turn but to wholly trust in the Lord.
She retired from Moody and moved to Seattle, where she continued to write poems and set them to music. In complete blindness, she would pick out the notes on a small keyboard and call on friends to record her melodies before she forgot them.
Whenever her friends asked how she was, her frequent reply was, “I am fine in the things that count.” She continued to write until she died at the age of 97 years. In all, she authored about 500 hymns.
So, what about the other woman? How did two women who never met, collaborate in the writing of this hymn?
In 1901, Lilias Trotter set off for a time alone With God. As a result of her meditation that day, she authored a devotional pamphlet titled, “Focused.”
About twenty years later, one of her friends found the pamphlet and read it to her. Helen was impacted by one sentence: “Turn full your soul’s vision to Jesus, and look and look at Him, and a strange dimness will come over all that is apart from Him.”
Those words seemed to repeat over and over in her mind during the following days. That was her inspiration to write both music and text for the song “TURN YOUR EYES UPON JESUS.”
In 1926, Lilias Trotter, revised her original booklet, combined it with Helen Lemmel’s text and music, and published it with the new title, “Focussed: A Story & A Song.”
(On a side note, I find the similarities between Helen Lemmel and Fanny Crosby to be interesting. Both ladies were very prolific hymn writers and, being totally blind, both used the imagery of looking at and seeing their Savior through the eyes of faith.)
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