Louisa Stead stood on the beach with her four-year-old daughter and watched her husband drown as he tried to rescue a child in the waters off Long Island, New York. The loss of her husband and persistent health problems brought a testing time in her life. Out of these experiences came the writing of “‘Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus,” an expression of faith inspired by her confidence in a loving heavenly Father at a time of great sorrow and desperate need.
Born in Dover, England, Louisa came to the United States in 1871 to visit friends in Cincinnati, Ohio. At a camp meeting in Urbana, Ohio, she offered herself for missionary service in China, but her frail physical condition prevented her appointment. Left without sufficient support following the death of her husband, she and her daughter experienced poverty and hunger. One morning she found that someone had left food and money on her doorstep. The Lord had answered her prayer. She responded in poetic verse, “‘Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus.”
Later her health improved and, with her daughter, Lily, she went as a missionary to the Cape Colony in South Africa, where she served for fifteen years. During this time, she married Robert Wodehouse, a South African Methodist minister. They returned to the United States for a short time for the sake of Louisa’s health, but in 1901 were appointed to the Methodist Mission in Umtali, on the eastern border of Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). Years later, Louisa Wodehouse retired but remained in Africa. She died in 1917 at her home in Penhalonga, about fifty miles north of Umtali. She was buried in a grave hewn out of solid rock, on the side of Black Mountain near her African home.
In some unknown manner, the words of Louisa’s poem came to the attention of William J. Kirkpatrick, a Philadelphia music publisher and gospel song composer. He wrote the tune and published the hymn in 1882. It remains a favorite among many congregations around the world as an expression of praise to Jesus Christ and a prayer for “grace to trust Him more.”