precious Lord, take my hand

Be strong and of good courage, do not fear nor be afraid of them; for the Lord your God, He is the One who goes with you. He will not leave you nor forsake you.

Deuteronomy 31:6

Some think this great old gospel song was written by the famous big bandleader Tommy Dorsey. It wasn't; the author was named Thomas Andrew Dorsey, and he was the son of a Black preacher.

Thomas was born in a small town in Georgia in 1899. When he was about eleven, the Dorseys moved to Atlanta where Thomas was quickly enamoured with the blues and began playing the piano as a vaudeville theater. Later the family moved to Chicago where he attended classes at the College of Composition and Arranging. Soon he was on stage under the name "Georgia Tom," playing barrelhouse piano and leading jazz bands.

After being converted in Chicago in 1921, Thomas began writing gospel songs and trying to get them published. It was discouraging at first. He later said, "I borrowed five dollars and sent out 500 copies of my song, 'If You See My Savior,' to churches throughout the country...It was three years before I got a single order. I felt like going back to the blues."

He didn't, and gradually his reputation grew and his work became known.

In August, 1932, while leading music in St. Louis, he was handed a telegram bearing the words, "Your wife just died." He rushed to a phone to call home, but all he could hear over the line was "Nettie is dead! Nettie is dead!" A friend drove him through the night, and he arrived home to learn that his baby boy had also died.

"I began to feel that God had done me an injustice," Thomas later said, "I didn't want to serve Him anymore or write anymore gospel songs." But the next Saturday, while alone in a friend's music room, he had a "strange feeling" inside--a sudden calm and a quiet stillness. "As my fingers began to manipulate over the keys, words began to fall in place on the melody like drops of water falling from the crevice of the rock:

Precious Lord, take my hand

Lead me on, let me stand

I am tired, I am weak, I am worn..."

Today Thomas A. Dorsey is remembered as the "Father of Gospel Music" and the author of hundreds of gospel songs including his equally famous, "Peace in the Valley."

Taken from the book: Then Sings My Soul