‘Oh to remember
my commitment afresh as in my youth’, someone has said in more or less these
very words. If you or I wanted to recapture what it was like, as a teenager, to
sense the zeal for our Creator-Redeemer, we wouldn’t need to make something up
out of thin air. A 16-year-old Canadian wrote, probably from his Montreal home
(see its flag here), “My Jesus, I Love You” to show how that fervor played out
for himself. And, how his words came to be published showed he wanted to share this
overflowing sensation. But, could he have expected that what he wrote would
travel so far, to another continent? This sequence of events showed the potency
of his expression, of how universal his thoughts and the One to whom they were directed
must have been.
William
Ralph Featherston is believed to have written “My Jesus, I Love Thee” in 1862
in the afterglow of his conversion, kicking off a series of further events that
have allowed his thoughts to endure for the last 150-plus years. He must have
been a young man (even if just 16) in touch with his own moral imperfections,
prompting his turn to the Divine to salvage himself and spurring the heartfelt
poetry he chose to mark the occasion. It was further evidence of this ebullience
when he sent the words to an aunt in Los Angeles. She must have been someone he
reckoned would especially appreciate his life-changing decision and rejoice
with him in the poem he related to her. Did she also have connections in the
music publishing world, or under what circumstances did she pass along her
nephew’s rhyme to someone in England, where it was in print two years later?
Since he died a bare 10 or 11 years later, was William a sickly individual,
suffering a physical malady that ultimately took his life, while also
compelling this teenager’s self-examination and spiritual commitment? Many
hymns have been planted and grow in the soil of someone’s health struggle. Featherston
wrote no other hymns that we know of, heightening our appreciation for what he
said this one time. Was it perhaps even something to which he clung because he
could sense his own demise was near? Jesus was his, William said, so the accessibility of his God was once facet
of Jesus that struck him (v. 1). His sacrifice (v.2) and the promise of eternity
(v.4) also drew his heart to Him, mature concepts that this teen had nevertheless
accepted. William was ready for Him, and God was ready to use him in return.
God
doesn’t really care how youthful I am. He used someone else in her early life to
do something quite unexpected, in fact incredible and totally unique by any
standards before or since. Mary, of course, had little to offer, except for how
she was prepared to respond once she got over the shock of what Gabriel told
her. “I am the Lord’s servant. May your word to me be fulfilled.” (Luke 1:38)
Could it be that He finds a malleable heart more often in the young, in someone
who’s unaccomplished, unassuming, and maybe a bit shy and uncertain of herself?
William Featherston may have been, as a 16-year-old, once perceived that way,
and look what he did! Oh to be a teenager again. Hey, with God, all things are
possible.
See more
information on the song story in these sources: The Complete Book of
Hymns – Inspiring Stories About 600 Hymns and Praise Songs by William J.
Petersen and Ardythe Petersen, Tyndale House Publishers, 2006; Amazing
Grace: 366 Inspiring Hymn Stories for Daily Devotions by Kenneth W. Osbeck,
Kregel Publications, 1990; 101 More Hymn Stories, by Kenneth W. Osbeck,
Kregel Publications, 1985; and Then Sings My Soul – 150 of the World’s
Greatest Hymn Stories, Robert J. Morgan, Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2003.
Also see this link, showing all four original verses: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/htm/m/j/e/mjesusil.htm
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