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Behind the Songs

At The End of My Rope

Deuteronomy 33:24-29
...and as thy days, so shall thy strength be.

Song: One Day at a Time

I have often said that many of the songs that are meaningful to Christians were born out of human adversity. That would be an understatement concerning the writing of the song presented in this chapter. Its author, Marijohn Wilkin, went from one mountain top of joy and success to another, but between those peaks were valleys filled with excruciating, mental suffering.

Ernest and Karla Melson were blessed with just one child, Marijohn, born to them in Kemp, Texas, in 1920. She quickly followed in her dad’s musical footsteps. He played violin, piano, or led the singing, which ever was needed, at First Baptist Church of Sanger, Texas, where Marijohn grew up. By age five she could play the piano, by ear, and one year later, when tiny hands were a little larger, she could immediately repeat what she would hear her dad play.

Although a straight-A student, by age fourteen she was thrust into the family business, Melson's Veribest Bread, doing everything from delivering with the truck to working in the plant. Ernest Melson had been stricken with cancer. He lived for three years, but before his death, which was a devastating blow to Marijohn, he secured a two-fold promise from her that she would go on to college and study music and that she would take care of her mother.

She spent long hours in the bakery, yet she managed to graduate as salutatorian of her high school class. This, coupled with her tremendous musical ability, afforded her a scholarship offer from Baylor University. She attended for a short time, but opted for a smaller school, Hardin-Simmons University, where she also was granted a full scholarship and was given the opportunity to join the University Cowboy Band, as the only girl member, ever. She excelled in college as a musician and a singer, and was given numerous unusual opportunities to travel and perform with the Cowboy Band.

Her second severe heartache came just three years after she graduated from college. Her husband, Bedford Russell, a pilot in World War II, whom she married two months after the commencement exercises, was killed in South Africa. Rising above the sorrow, she remained a school teacher and an alto soloist in the church choir. She also made an attempt to write songs, but thought so little of her efforts she didn’t keep the manuscripts.

By age thirty-seven she had moved to Nashville, Tennessee, where she became one of the leading songwriters in the country music field, and started Buckhorn Music Publishers. By this time she was married again and had a young son, John Buck. She wrote more than 400 country songs, with many of them rising to the top of the charts. She was associated with such stars of the country music field as Mel Tillis, Johnny Cash, Patti Page, Charlie Pride, Patsy Cline, and Glen Campbell, just to name a very few. One of her writers at Buckhorn Music was Kris Kristofferson, a graduate of Pomona College in California, who had gone on to Oxford University in England as a Rhodes Scholar. She published more than seventy-five of his songs. He would later become a star in the film industry.

Amid all of the acclaim, money, and success as a country songwriter, Marijohn stopped attending church, and slowly became addicted to alcohol. Life, to her, was not worth living, and so she attempted suicide on more than one occasion, with pills and with a gun. But God, in His merciful grace spared her life.

Now, let me have her tell you just how she, at age 53, came to write her most famous song, just as she told it to me:

“I really could not understand why I was having so much success in the country music field. Although I had enjoyed quite a rush as a country writer, I had reached the end of my rope. I truly felt that I had been called to be a gospel writer, but I couldn’t seem to get there. I was in the music scene in Nashville up to my ears. I was wherever it was ‘happening’ and was helping make it happen. Yet, I became frustrated! I had ‘had it!’”

“I stopped by a small church and asked a young minister if I could talk with him. I found out later that I was his first person to counsel. I had driven up in my new, midnight blue Cadillac, and was dressed in a full length mink coat with sparkling jewelry and my cowboy boots. I said, ‘I have all kinds of problems.’ He looked at me and said, ‘You look like you don’t have any financial problems.’ I answered, ‘No, I don’t.’ He said, ‘You look pretty healthy.’ I said, ‘Well, I guess I am.’ He then asked, ‘What is your main problem?’ I said, ‘I don’t know.’ He didn’t seem to know what more to say to me.”

“At that point in our conversation he said a funny thing. But it was okay, because it worked. He asked, ‘Did you ever think about thanking God for your problems?’ Ephesians 5:20 I left his office and made my way back home.”

“I reached my house and found that it was empty, for which I was glad. I sat down at the piano and began to play and sing -- out loud -- the entire chorus to One Day at a Time. ‘That’s all I’m asking from You. Just give me the strength to do every day, what I have to do.’ It just dropped into my heart. And, when I had finished singing, my ‘Nashville mind’ said, ‘That’s a hit!’ That was the first thing that popped into my head. I then recognized that the song was a prayer -- and I got some relief.”

“I wrote the chorus I had just been give on the back of an envelope, as fast as I could write. I then continued to sing, ‘Do You remember when You walked among men? Well, Jesus, You know, if You’re looking below, it’s worse now than then.’ I wasn’t quite sure the Lord knew where I was. I never quit believing in Him, at all, but I was in Nashville and God was in heaven and never the twain shall meet. I really didn’t know if God actually knew where I was. I realize that some don’t believe that, but that was where ‘I’ was, at the time.”

“The following morning my mind went back to the song. I had the second verse and the chorus, but somehow I couldn’t get the song started properly. Kris Kristofferson and Rita Coolidge, who were married at the time, were in town. They had just had a huge hit, Why Me, Lord? written by Kris. Their recording had won a Dove Award for them. I called Kris and asked him to help me with the first verse. He had written songs for my company, Buckhorn Music, and we had some pretty big hits as publisher.”

“When I showed him how I started the song, ‘I’m just a mortal...’ he looked at me and said, ‘Why don’t you say, ‘I’m only human, I’m just a man...’ I said, ‘That’s good! That’s what I need.’ We finished the first verse in about twenty minutes. The lines just flew out from each of us.”

The song, first recorded by Marilyn Sellers, rose to become the number one song in several categories. In this country it was first a hit on the country charts and then it crossed over to the pop charts. It was the number one pop song in England, the number one country song in Ireland, and among the top ten in two other countries. Each recording has been by a different artist in that particular country. It has long since passed the 600 mark in artist recordings, and has crossed over into the Southern Gospel Music genre.

Marijohn Wilkin, as a singer, went on to record four fabulous albums for Word Music. One Day at a Time was on the first album, which she titled, “I Have Returned.” It was Marijohn’s way I letting America know that she had come back to the Lord. She is now a happy, alcohol-free Christian and has written approximately 300 gospel songs. In 1975, she was once again honored, this time with a Dove Award. She shared the platform with other winners, among whom were Brock Speer and James Blackwood, both of Southern Gospel Music fame. She continues to make her home in Nashville.

Reflection:
After writing the above song story a famous quote comes to mind: “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” Those who have been successful for God have been those who served Him “one day at a time.”