Helen Lemmel, a member of Ballard Baptist Church, died in Seattle on November 1, 1961, thirteen days before her 98th birthday; she had written nearly 500 hymns. Due to her extreme poverty, her remains were cremated and nobody seems to know where they were disposed of. No matter. Those are things of earth. Strangely dim. Imagine her joy, when she turned her glorified eyes on her Savior and Look[ed} full in his wonderful face”!

How are you doing? We’re often asking one another. And we dutifully respond, “Fine. I’m doing just fine.” When, in fact, we may be on the brink of despair. Do you ever feel that you’re believing and hoping in the darkness? Is your soul weary and troubled? You’re not alone. The life of Helen Howarth Lemmel (1863-1961) is a marvelous illustration of clinging and “doing well” though doing so in the total darkness.
Helen was born in Wardle, England, November 14, 1863. Her father was a Wesleyan minister who decided, when their daughter was about twelve-years-old, to immigrate to America. The family first settled in Mississippi and later moved to Wisconsin.
Early in her life, Helen had shown great love for music, and great skill. Her parents did their best to find good vocal teachers for their daughter, and her vocal expertise increased. In 1904, an opportunity arose in Seattle, Washington for Helen to write about music for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. After four years, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity arose: Helen was invited to further her musical studies in Germany.
While studying abroad, she fell in love with a wealthy European and they got married. How are you doing, Helen? Very well, indeed! So it seemed. Until tragedy struck. She was rapidly losing her eyesight. When she became totally blind—her husband abandoned her. Helen would struggle with loneliness and various heartaches throughout the rest of her long life.
Her soul, “weary and troubled,” blind Helen returned to America, “no light in the darkness” could she see. How are you doing, Helen? I’m lonely, afraid, blind, and abandonned–how do you think I’m doing? But her Savior had her graven on his heart, and she could still sing. Looking full in the wonderful face of her Savior, she travelled widely, singing in churches throughout the Midwest. During these years, Helen was hired to teach voice at Moody Bible Institute.
When she was fifty-five years old, Helen heard someone say something about her eyes–almost insulting–that had a huge impact on her mind and imagination: “So then, turn your eyes upon Him, look full into His face and you will see that the things of earth will acquire a strange new dimness.”
“I stood still,” Helen later recalled, “and singing in my soul and spirit was the chorus:
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.
She continued her account, saying that there was “…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,” she added, “nonetheless dictated by the Holy Spirit.”
Now elderly, lonely, and infirm—and blind—Helen became acquainted with her neighbor, a young man named Doug Goins and his parents, Paul and Kathryn Goins. “She was advanced in years and almost destitute, but she was an amazing person,” recalled Doug. “She made a great impression on me as a junior high child because of her joy and enthusiasm. Though she was living on government assistance in a sparse bedroom, whenever we’d ask how she was doing, she would reply, ‘I’m doing well in the things that count.’” One day, the Goins invited her to dinner. “We had never entertained a blind person before,” said Kathryn, “…despite her infirmities, she was full of life.”
“She was always composing hymns,” said Kathryn. “She had no way of writing them down, so she would call my husband at all hours, and he’d rush down and record them before she forgot the words.”
Helen had a cheap plastic keyboard by her bed, at which she spent her days playing, singing—and, in her sorrows—sometimes crying. “One day, God is going to bless me with a great heavenly keyboard,” she’d say. “I can hardly wait!”
Helen Lemmel, a member of Ballard Baptist Church, died in Seattle on November 1, 1961, thirteen days before her 98th birthday; she had written nearly 500 hymns. Due to her extreme poverty, her remains were cremated and nobody seems to know where they were disposed of. No matter. Those are things of earth. Strangely dim. Imagine her joy, when she turned her glorified eyes on her Savior and Look[ed} full in his wonderful face”!
How are you really doing? In the things that really count?
1. 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.
2. Thro’ 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!
3. 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! (Tune)
Douglas Bond, author of more than thirty books, directs the Oxford Creative Writing Master Class, leads Church history tours (join him on the Rome to Geneva Tour, 2023), and he is copy editor for authors and publishers. Contact him at [email protected]
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To my pastors, and pastors everywhere: Thank you. Thank you for continually encouraging us to keep running this race, pressing us to run better and faster. Thank you for reminding us that we’re almost there- that we can end well. What you do really does make a difference.

It was desperation that made me do it.
My ears perked up when your weekly message ended with the familiar reminder that the pastors are available to meet with people experiencing various issues in their spiritual walk.
A troubled relationship with one person had created ripples of conflict in other areas of my life and I had found myself in what I thought was an inescapable and intolerable situation. I was certain I was right, but that provided no resolution to the conflict in which I was engulfed.
The multiple facets to my situation were like hundreds of strands in a knot with which I wrestled inwardly day and night. I could not see another way and I was emotionally distraught. I don’t like to ask for help, but I had come to the end of my own resources. I emailed you for a recommendation to meet with someone in our church counseling ministry, but you and your wife offered to meet with me instead.
I’m not sure what I was expecting but I know I did not expect that what I learned in our meetings would eventually alter the curve of my Christian walk forever. I know I did not expect the level of compassion that you both showed me. So often we avoid asking for help because we don’t want to dispel the church myth that we have it all worked out, and appear weekly with shiny, happy smiles. I’m utterly grateful for that compassion. When you began to slowly unravel my knot in the light of scripture, and I saw that my problem was deeper than the other person, your compassion made the hard admission of my failings so much easier.
When it would have been possible to get involved in the details of my conflict, you kept the focus on God’s Word, the Bible. It was with skill that you applied those ancient Words to my wound. I remember you telling me that no matter how wrong I thought someone else was or how badly I felt I had been treated, I was still answerable to God for my own behavior. Well of course I knew it at some superficial level, but that day it got my attention and I realized that my failure to live by that very concept was probably keeping me from growing spiritually. Although I hadn’t realized it before, I think I (and many others) believed that some poor behavior is justifiable. Some wrong reactions are admissible. But Jesus didn’t add an “except when” to the charge to love one’s enemies. It became clear that if I was going to go on saying that I believe in God, I was going to have to humble myself and do what He said. Even the hard things. The cost of which, of course, was my own pride and comfort.
As a result of our meetings, the Sermon on the Mount, perhaps Jesus’ most famous words, took on new life. And I have to tell you, I felt a fair amount of dismay when I measured my behavior against those hard words. “Love your enemy.” “If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles.” “Pray for those who persecute you.” “Forgive us… as we have forgiven others.” “Lay up treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust destroy… for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” “Judge not, that you be not judged.” “Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?” “Whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them.” “The gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.” “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord’, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.”
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I write to you in reference to reports that you are on the cusp of receiving Memorial Presbyterian in St. Louis, Missouri into your fold, along with her leadership, including her senior pastor, Greg Johnson. Before taking such action, I earnestly implore you to ponder the following four points as they reflect upon Dr. Johnson’s fitness for office among you:

[Author’s preface: Much of the material recounted here is sinful and morally-corrosive, and as I do not wish to lead you into sin even in opposing wrong (Lk. 17:1-2), I strongly counsel you to prayerfully consider whether it is advantageous for you to read what follows at all. I emphatically request that women, the young, new believers, and those especially tempted to sexual immorality refrain from reading this; and as for those who do proceed, I urge you, in the spirit of Gal. 6:1, to keep close watch on yourself lest you too be tempted, and to counteract this with a large course of holy exercises, as the reading of scripture, prayer, meditation, and wholesome fellowship.]
Dear Brothers:
I am a member of a congregation in the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), and write to you in reference to reports that you are on the cusp of receiving Memorial Presbyterian in St. Louis, Missouri into your fold, along with her leadership, including her senior pastor, Greg Johnson. Before taking such action, I earnestly implore you to ponder the following four points as they reflect upon Dr. Johnson’s fitness for office among you:

One, in an article published at the website Living Out on August 19th, 2021, Johnson subtitled one of his sections “The human propensity to f*** things up,” and elaborated:

As Francis Spufford writes, it’s ‘the human propensity to f*** things up’ that best points to the fact that Christianity still makes profound emotional sense.
Sanitized cursing is still wrong, not least since a repentant curser such as myself (and practically everyone over the age of childhood) can clearly tell what is meant. What is sinful is the opposite of what is holy, and it is the latter that God requires of all his people, but especially those who would shepherd others. Our Lord said that “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks” (Mt. 12:34), the digital corollary of which is that it is out of the heart that the fingers type.
Actually, writing something is worse, since one can speak from fatigue or momentary emotion, but one who writes what is sinful has the opportunity to ponder whether it is appropriate to publish before doing so—and in this case saw fit to proceed. I would never write such a thing in an email at work, and would fear for my job if I did. And yet it can be used in an article professing to teach Christ’s faith? Such things “ought not to be” (Jas. 3:10).
In fact, there is a further problem with it, for Johnson quotes here what is a formal concept with Spufford, his alternative to the orthodox doctrine of sin. Spufford is an utter heretic whose point in the book quoted is that the faith cannot be known, but still makes “surprising emotional sense.”[1] (See footnote for examples of his heresies.) That is a radically different faith from the historic one taught in Scripture, yet Johnson willfully appealed to Spufford and his teaching, what is no small fault.

Regrettably, Johnson’s unclean language appears elsewhere. In his 2021 book Still Time to Care, he writes the following, but before recounting it, I reiterate my prefatory warning and strongly counsel any readers who have no immediate role in his acceptance to skip it, for it is sorely filthy and does not tend to one’s edification.

Beginning on page 169 he has a section called “Teenage Greek Boys and the Men They Melted,” in which he ‘contextualizes’ pederasty and says things like “what can a woman do when her husband has skin silkier than hers and can snare more men?” (quoting Ovid). On p. 171 he quotes a homoerotic Greek drinking song and comments “my, how those Greek men melted.” The correspondent who brought this to my attention says that Johnson even makes a hypothetical introduction at one point that runs “Hi I’m Greg, I am a Christian and I want to build my life on receiving as much sex as I can from men, with me in the passive role,” though he neglected to mention where and I have much too high a respect for my soul to go looking for it.
Such statements are disgusting and reprehensible, and they openly violate God’s commands in Ephesians 5:3-4:
Sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints. Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving.
Indeed, I’m not sure I should even have published them here; but as you are considering him for office among you, you ought to know the true character of the man, as shown in statements such as this; for “the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil” (Matt. 12:35). Again, he knowingly chose to make such graphic sodomy jokes in the name of arguing for Christian compassion. True compassion never involves such open rebellion against God’s commands, and never clothes itself in filth (1 Cor. 13:6).

Johnson’s church allowed its property be used for the “Transluminate” festival in 2020, which event was a “celebration of transgender, agender, non-binary, genderqueer, and genderfluid artists” and included a play about “a human [who] wants to transform into another species.” Using God’s property to give material aid to the open celebration of debauchery is as brazen a rebellion against him as when the Israelites worshipped idols in the temple. It is not evangelism, outreach, or any form of Christian ministry, but aiding and abetting those sins to which God gives people over as judgment (Rom. 1:18-32). God says it is an abomination when people adopt the dress of the opposite sex (Deut. 22:5)—shall we deem it less evil when they permanently disfigure themselves in attempting to adopt the physique of the opposite sex? Yet that was what “Transluminate” encouraged, and far from calling its participants to repentance without ensnaring their church in sin, Memorial’s leadership gladly gave their property for Transluminate’s use. People who do such things clearly have no fear of God, else they should tremble lest that wrath which he so often poured upon the Israelites (e.g., Eze. 8-9) should come also upon us.
Johnson has not hesitated to casually slander those that disagree with him. Consider this tweet:

Laying aside the severe twisting of Gal. 2 to his own purposes in that, accusing people who disapprove one’s actions of being gospel-denying false teachers, and thereby bringing upon them the fierce condemnation of the New Testament (e.g., “for them the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved,” 2 Pet. 2:17) is a grievous slander indeed, worthy rather of Satan, the great accuser of the brethren, than of one claiming to be a grace-bearing emissary of Christ.
Now God says, “Do not admit a charge against an elder except on the evidence of two or three witnesses” (1 Tim. 5:19). I have given you four lines of evidence, all public, and most drawn from his own words. I’m not aware that he has repented the statements or deeds mentioned above, but even if he has, they are so numerous and of such a severe nature as to disqualify him from office. I therefore earnestly implore you not to accept this man into office among you, nor to accept that church or its other elders which standfast to him and participate in his sins.
Be wise and learn from our experience in the PCA. This man’s late tenure among us was fraught with strife, and he nearly splintered the denomination. Our Lord says to “beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves” and that we “will recognize them by their fruits” (Matt. 7:15-16). Singlehandedly embroiling the largest non-apostate Presbyterian denomination in the country in years of strife and nearly splitting it is a rotten fruit, wouldn’t you say? Should you then open the gate to the pasture to such a man, and employ him in the government of the sheep and the evaluation of future shepherds? I am hopeful that God’s grace will enable you to ponder this matter aright, but if you will not listen to my warning here but instead stiffen your necks, imagining that any of the transgressions I have mentioned above is excusable or, worse still, mistaking it for Christian ministry, then I fear for you, that this word draws nigh against you: “it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God” (1 Pet. 4:17).
Tom Hervey is a member of Woodruff Road Presbyterian Church, Five Forks/Simpsonville (Greenville Co.), SC. The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not of necessity reflect those of his church or its leadership or other members. He welcomes comments at the email address provided with his name. He is also author of Reflections on the Word: Essays in Protestant Scriptural Contemplation. 

[1] He says at one point that “it is a mistake to suppose that it is assent to the propositions [i.e. “of the Creed”] that makes you a believer. It is the feelings that are primary. I assent to the ideas because I have the feelings; I don’t have the feelings because I have assented to the ideas.” He subsequently says “my belief is made of, built up from, sustained by emotions like that. That’s what makes it real.” He also quotes the Quran approvingly and espouses a sort of agnosticism, saying “I don’t know that any of it is true. (And neither do you, and neither does Professor Dawkins, and neither does anybody. It isn’t the kind of thing you can know. It isn’t a knowable item.)” He disparages the intellect in favor of the emotions, saying “emotions are also our indispensable tool for navigating, for feeling our way through, the much larger domain of stuff that isn’t checkable against the physical universe.” These and further errors (inc. blasphemy and what appears to be pantheism and denials of God’s sovereignty, providence, and miracles) occur in a three page section (pp.19-21) in which he recounts feeling good listening to Mozart in a cafe after he had been up all night arguing with his wife because he committed adultery—hardly the right circumstances under which to formulate theological doctrine. (To say the very least . . .) But Johnson did not hesitate to quote him without qualification.
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