“Before I Was”

Amy Carmichael, Beauty for Ashes,

by Iain Murray

I recently read this wonderful (and for Murray, very brief) biography of this remarkable missionary whose work in India shaped lives and changed missionary thinking. Mother to hundreds, she was her generation’s Mother Teresa, but with a decidedly Evangelical bent. After one visit home to Northern Ireland early in her career, she returned to India, never to leave.

She was a prolific writer and her poems are strong medicine for the soul. Some other time I’ll share “No Scar,” my favorite, but here is one that I found near the beginning of the book that I wish I had come across earlier in my life.

If you click on the picture, it will take you to Amazon, where you can get the book for yourself. I highly recommend it—along with Elisabeth Elliot’s earlier biography, A Chance to Die: The Life and Legacy of Amy Carmichael.

Before I was

Thou knewest me before I was, I am all open unto Thee,

And yet Thou lovest me, because My Lord, Thou lovest me.

No other reason can I find,

No other reason can there be;

No human love, were it not blind, Could ever care for me.

But Thy pure eyes do read me through, My soul is naked unto Thee;

And yet, O wonder ever new, My Lord, Thou lovest me.

And Thou wilt love; if good of mine Had caused Thy glorious love to be,

Then surely would Thy love decline And weary, Lord, of me.

I may not fear, for to the end

Thou lovest, Lord. O who but Thee,

The sinner’s Saviour and his Friend, Would set his love on me?

And on Thee now my heart is set,

Thy name is music unto me.

O help me never to forget

That I am loved by Thee.