These words were inspired by a simple sentence prayed by an elderly woman at a prayer meeting in the early 1900s. Instead of asking blessings from the Lord, she gave herself as a living sacrifice in the words “It doesn’t matter what You bring into our lives, Lord. Just have Your own way with us.” Adelaide Pollard was present in the meeting and the clause “Have Thine Own Way” rang in her ears so intensely that before she reached home she had formed some stanzas of this hymn in her mind. Before retiring that evening, she had completed the hymn. The text and tune first appeared in Northfield Hymnal with Alexander’s Supplement, 1907, compiled by George C. Stebbins.

Sarah Addison Pollard was born on November 27, 1862, at Bloomfield, Iowa. She took her education in that state and in Indiana, and then at the Boston School of Oratory. She taught in Chicago in girls’ schools, and then at the Missionary Training School in New York City for eight years. She was also an itinerant Bible teacher and lecturer, both before and after spending a few months in Africa prior to World War I. She spent her last years in the eastern United States, lecturing and teaching. A diabetic, she suffered ill health all her life. After promising but frustrating visits to faith healers, she accepted her handicap and turned to hymn writing, producing several other hymns. In her youth she was nicknamed Addie, from her second Christian name. At the age of 17 she dropped the Sarah and adopted the name Adelaide. On December 20, 1934, while waiting at the railway station in New York, planning to board a train for Philadelphia, she died of a heart attack.

George Coles Stebbins (1846-1945; see Biographies) composed the tune ADELAIDE for these words in 1907. The tune is sometimes called STEBBINS.

📖 Reference: Companion to the Seventh-day Adventist Hymnal by Wayne Hooper and Edward E. White. Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1988.