HYMN #383 My Faith Looks Up to Thee was written by Ray Palmer, a teacher at a private girls’school in New York. He had experienced a difficult year of illness and loneliness and was inspired to write this text one night after meditating on a German poem depicting a sinner kneeling before the cross of Christ.The text asks for forgiveness in stanza 1 & for purity of love in stanza 2 The third stanza seeks divine guidance and alludes to the difficulties of Palmer’s preceding year. The hymn concludes with a hope for a safe homecoming into the eternal presence of God.