Civilla D. Martin herself told how this hymn came to be written: “I was confined to a sickbed in a Bible school in Lestershire, New York. My husband was spending several weeks at the school, making a songbook for the president of the school. ‘God Will Take Care of You’ was written one Sunday afternoon while my husband went to a preaching appointment. When he returned, I gave the words to him. He immediately sat down to his little Bilhorn organ [a small portable instrument] and wrote the music. That evening he and two of the teachers sang the completed song. It was then printed in the songbook he was compiling for the school” (Songs of Redemption and Praise, 1905).

Civilla Durfee Martin was born August 21, 1866, at Jordan, Nova Scotia. A schoolteacher and musician, she married Walter Stillman Martin and assisted him in evangelistic campaigns. She died in Atlanta, Georgia, on March 9, 1948.

Stillman Martin was born in 1862 at Rowley, Massachusetts, and attended Harvard University. Ordained a Baptist minister, he later changed to work for the Christian Church, or Disciples of Christ. In 1916, he became a professor of Bible study at the Atlantic Christian College in North Carolina. His final home was Atlanta, from which he traveled widely, holding Bible conferences and evangelistic meetings. He died December 16, 1935.

Collaborating with his wife, Civilla, he wrote a number of gospel songs used in his work.