I’ll go where You want me to go, dear Lord,
Over mountain, or plain, or sea.
I’ll say what You want me to say, dear Lord.
I’ll be what You want me to be.
It’s been years since I’ve heard this song. But for the last number of days, I’ve been humming it over and over again. I’ve also been reading about Corrie ten Boom and Pamela Rosewell Moore, Corrie’s companion and caretaker during the last decade of her life. The lives of both these women, fully surrendered to Jesus and anything He called them to do, reminded me of this song. It inspires me to continue to surrender myself and my life to Jesus, no matter what He asks of me.
The verses of this old hymn, written by Mary Brown (1918-1956), are just as compelling as its refrain:
It may not be on the mountain’s height,
Or over the stormy sea;
It may not be at the battle’s front
My Lord will have need of me.
But if by a still, small voice He calls
To paths I do not know,
I’ll answer, dear Lord, with my hand in Thine,
“I’ll go where You want me to go.” [Refrain]
Perhaps today there are loving words
Which Jesus would have me speak;
There may be now, in the paths of sin,
Some wand’rer whom I should seek.
O Savior, if Thou wilt be my Guide,
Tho’ dark and rugged the way,
My voice shall echo the message sweet,
I’ll say what you want me to say. [Refrain]
There’s surely somewhere a lowly place
In earth’s harvest fields so wide
Where I may labor thro’ life’s short day
For Jesus, the Crucified;
So, trusting my all to Thy tender care,
And knowing Thou lovest me,
I’ll do Thy will with a heart sincere,
I’ll be what You want me to be. [Refrain]
Two Sisters Fully Surrendered to Jesus
Corrie ten Boom was a fifty-year-old Dutch woman who, along with her father and sister Betsie, helped over 700 Jews escape the Nazi Holocaust during World War II by hiding them in their home. When a Dutch informant betrayed them, the Gestapo raided their home on February 28, 1944, and arrested them. Corrie’s father died in prison just ten days after their arrest.
Corrie and her sister were transferred together to Ravensbrück concentration camp near Berlin, where Betsie died on December 16, 1944. Fifteen days later, Corrie was released. She found out years later her release was due to a clerical error, and that one week later, all the women of her age group were sent to the gas chamber.
A coincidence? Hardly. As Psalm 139:16 tells us, “All my days were written in your book and planned before a single one of them began.” While Betsie had finished her earthly work, God still had work for Corrie to do. And she did it, faithfully, for all of her remaining 38 years.
Days before her death, Betsie told Corrie, “There is no pit so deep, that God’s love is not deeper still. They will listen to us, Corrie, because we have been here.” It was Betsie’s dream for her and Corrie to spread this message after their release from prison. But Betsie’s release was directly to Heaven. It was now up to Corrie to carry the message of God’s love to others.
Corrie added another message to that of God’s love: the power of forgiveness and that Jesus is victor. Through forgiving those who had made life so difficult for them in prison and who were responsible for the deaths of her family members, Corrie found profound freedom. She longed for others to know the depth of God’s love and the freedom of forgiveness through Jesus, the One who makes forgiveness possible.
In 1946 at age 53, Corrie began a world-wide ministry. For 33 years she traveled to over 60 countries spreading God’s message of love and forgiveness. She also wrote many books, including the best-seller, The Hiding Place, which told of their ministry hiding Jews and their subsequent imprisonment. The Hiding Place was later made into a movie.
A Young Woman Fully Surrendered to Jesus
In 1965, a 21-year-old woman named Pam Rosewell from Hastings, England, struggled to surrender her life to Jesus. She was afraid if she did, God would call her to be a missionary, speak in public, and remain single for the rest of her life.
It was at a youth retreat that she came “face to face with God, and laid in his hands my right to my own way… pure joy, like liquid, filled me, the love of God nearly overwhelmed me and I became a different person,” as she wrote years later.
God did call her to be a missionary, speak in public, and to remain single for many years. But contrary to her fear, these brought her much fulfillment.
After serving at a mission in Africa for a year, she assisted Brother Andrew in his ministry smuggling Bibles into Eastern Europe. (He tells his story in the book, God’s Smuggler. She then became Corrie ten Boom’s assistant and travel companion.
Even though she had thought she never wanted to leave England, she enjoyed the exciting life of meeting new people and seeing new places. Most of all, she got to help spread the message of God’s love and forgiveness all over the world. She recognized that if she had married younger and had a family, she would never have been able to do these things.
Through all these experiences, Pam kept laying her will down at Jesus’ feet. She found great fulfillment in His purpose and plan for her. She tells her story of continued surrender in her book, Safer Than a Known Way.
Eventually, she and Corrie settled into a little house in Placentia, California. There, Corrie continued to write, record video messages to be shown in churches and prisons, and host visitors. When Corrie’s health deteriorated after a stroke, Pam became her primary caretaker. She witnessed God continuing to use Corrie to spread the love of Jesus to others, even when she could no longer speak. God called Corrie home to Him on her 91st birthday, April 15, 1983. Pam chronicles these last years of Corrie’s life in her book, The Five Silent Years of Corrie Ten Boom.
Pam later married. God also opened the doors for her own ministry of authoring books, speaking, and continuing to spread the message of Jesus she had assisted others in sharing for so many years.
Our Surrender to Jesus
I’ll go where You want me to go, dear Lord,
Over mountain, or plain, or sea.
I’ll say what You want me to say, dear Lord.
I’ll be what You want me to be.
Will you join me in praying that prayer of surrender to Jesus? Will you submit to His purpose and plan for you?
Full surrender to the God who loves us and gave His life for us is the only way to a fulfilling life. There is no greater fulfillment than to do the work “which God prepared ahead of time for us to do” (Ephesians 2:10 CSB).
