Just Where He Needs Me

Heather Allington

Heather writes for Sunday Song Book on behalf of the The Salvation Army Oshawa. As a lifelong member of the Army, she has loved these familiar - and some less familiar - songs for many years, and enjoys researching and writing about their origins. She is a wife, mother, grandmother and retired elementary school teacher who likes trying her hand at watercolour painting and poetry writing.

What can I say to cheer a world of sorrow?
How bring back hope where men have sorely failed?
Just where I am I’ll speak the word of comfort,
Tell how for me Christ’s sacrifice availed.

Just where He needs me,
My Lord has placed me;
Just where He needs me, there would I be!
And since He found me, by love He’s bound me
To serve Him joyfully!

What can I do to ease life’s heavy burdens?
What can I do to help mankind in need?
Just where I am I’ll share my neighbour’s hardship,
Lighten his load, and prove a friend indeed.

What can I do to justify my living?
What can I be to make this life worthwhile?
I’ll be a voice to call men to the Saviour,
Just where I am, and win my Father’s smile.

We all sometimes need reassurance that we are in the place God wants us to be, doing the tasks He wants us to do for Him. One wonders whether Miriam Richards, this song’s author, felt that need in some of her various appointments as a Salvation Army officer, or whether she wrote these words mainly for the sake of others.

We all sometimes need reassurance that we are in the place God wants us to be Share on X

Miriam Richards was born in 1911 and grew up in Java and in Korea, where her parents were Salvation Army missionary officers. Using her writing ability, Miriam worked for five years in the Editorial Department at the Salvation Army’s International Headquarters, before entering the Training College in 1932. She was given the honour of being a Cadet-Sergeant for a year, and then was appointed to Chester-le Street, followed by a term in the Young People’s Department at British National Headquarters. Various other appointments followed, in both social and editorial work, until Miriam retired as a Lieutenant-Colonel in 1971. She wrote several books, including a history of Salvation Army medical work, It Began with Andrews, as well as having 125 songs published.