Text · full lyrics
Whom have I in Heav’n above?
Only Thee, my Savior;
Whom have I on earth to love?
Only Thee, my Savior;
Who my wounded heart can heal,
who my every sorrow feel,
Who the light of joy reveal?
Only Thee, my Savior.
Who has led me all my days?
Only Thou, my Savior;
Who deserves my highest praise?
Only Thou, my Savior;
In my weakness who is strong,
who has loved and loved me long,
Who should claim my noblest song?
Only Thou, my Savior.
Who my inmost thoughts can read?
Only Thou, my Savior;
Who for me doth intercede?
Only Thou, my Savior;
Who my secret thoughts can know,
who such tender mercy show,
Who can make me white as snow?
Only Thou, my Savior.
The lyricist
Fanny Crosby
Blind from six weeks old, Fanny Crosby taught at the New York Institution for the Blind from 1847 and later gave her days to the city's Bowery rescue missions, writing for the people who came through them. She composed in her head — carrying dozens of finished verses at a time — before dictating them to a copyist, and worked hand in glove with the gospel composers of the revival circuit, among them Ira Sankey and Phoebe Knapp. She wrote so much, some eight thousand hymns, that her publishers had her scatter the credits across nearly two hundred pen names, so that no single hymnal would seem to lean on one author. "I Am Redeemed" appeared that way in 1895, set to Sankey's music and signed "Julia Sterling" — a name that was hers, and wasn't.