He's With Me I Know
THE STORY
From the first time I heard the song “He’s With Me I Know” I fell in love with it. After hearing Brad and Janae Farless sing it in Palmdale, California, they told me it was Janae’s grandpa, Carl Knight, who’d written the song years before.
The next month (July 2016) I was visiting a camp in Missouri when an elderly gentlemen came up and introduced himself to me and my mother. Somewhere in that initial conversation he mentioned that he wrote songs. Out of the blue I made the connection, “Knight?! Your last name is Knight! You’re the guy who wrote, ‘He’s With Me, I Know’ aren’t you?” I was stunned.
Before we parted ways we exchanged CDs with each other, and in the weeks and months following we shared countless songs and stories through text. For an eighty-five-year-old man, his texting grammar and spelling were impeccable.
By snail-mail I sent him the song “Things You Took Away” asking for his input (he didn’t tell me to change anything). I also texted him a bit of a poem I’d written quickly and he developed the music for it. The result was a quiet hymn-sounding song that I hope to put on my next album.
My only contribution to “He’s With Me I Know” came in September of 2016. Our church was in revival and while Rev. Jeremy Fuller was preaching one night these words started marching through my head about as easily as “Amazing Grace” goes marching through yours:
“I come and I bring Him my burdens/ And I leave Him with all of my woe/ It seems now that nothing is changing/ But He’s working, He’s working I know/ Working when I am discouraged/ Working when I’m bending low/ Moving in places now hidden/ He’s working, He’s working I know.”
I received Grandpa Knight’s blessing in adding the fourth verse and final chorus to the song.
Through the course of our sharing songs and their back-stories, Carl Knight and his wife Mary became Grandpa and Grandma Knight to me. The day he crossed the chilly Jordan (July 25, 2018), his family called me for us to share goodbyes, hoping that maybe it would help him let go of this world and reach for the next. Jesus took him easy later that night.
with Carl & Mary “Grandpa & Grandma” Knight, October 2016
THE SONG
1. Sometimes when I’m in the valley
And it seems that I am so low
My Savior then whispers so gently
”I’m with you, I’m with you, you know”
Chorus 1:
With me when I am discouraged
With me when I’m bending low
Surrounding my soul with His mercy
He’s with me, He’s with me I know
2. I reach out to touch Him each morning
To thank Him for loving me so
It seems that I just want to tell Him,
”I love you, I love you, you know”
3. Unworthy, yet He walks beside me
To teach me the way I should go
He tells me to call when I need Him
And He’s listening, He’s listening, I know
4. So I come and I bring Him my burdens
And I leave Him with all of my woe
It seems now that nothing is changing
But He’s working, He’s working, I know
Chorus 2:
Working when I am discouraged
Working when I’m bending low
Moving in places now hidden
He’s working, He’s working, I know
Words and music © John Carl Knight, some time prior to 1990. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
Words to fourth verse and last chorus by Merilee Barnard, September 2016.