In his autobiography, Then Sings My Soul, 1968, George Beverly Shea (19 –; see SDAH 75) shares how this tune was premiered in 1939 on an old motorized reed organ in his father’s church in Jersey City: “[Mother] had a habit of leaving little notes –poems, quotations, essays—around the house for her children to read. Her communiques to me were always left on the piano or on my violin case. One Sunday morning, she placed on the piano a little poem by Mrs. Rhea F. Miller. Mother thought its message beautiful. I did, too. Instead of practicing the hymn I had intended to play that Sunday morning in church, I turned to this poem. Melody just seemed to form around the words. When I played and sang it through for the first time, Mother came in from the kitchen where she had overheard. She wrapped both arms around my shoulders and placed her wet cheek net to mine. In church that morning, I sang for the first time, ‘I’d Rather Have Jesus.’”

     No information is available about Mrs. Rhea F. Miller.