[1] Wöhler wrote the poem after she, the daughter of a Lutheran pastor in Lichtenhagen, announced that she was converting to Catholicism, only to be expelled from her parental home and disowned by her family.

[2] She began a correspondence with priests and religious authors Christoph von Schmid and Alban Stolz.

[4] In 1916, Karl Kindsmüller (1876–1955), a teacher, church musician and composer of several sacred songs from Lower Bavaria, wrote a melody for it.

She made a confession of faith to the bishop Lothar von Kübel,[1] and received confirmation three days later, and her first communion on 16 July 1870.

After five months, she moved to live with a young couple on the nearby Freundsberg, where she wrote the poetry collection, Was das Ewige Licht erzählt.

[1] In 1876, Josef Anton Schmid from Oberstaufen requested a "pious poem" ("frommes Gedicht") from her for a memorial plaque for the Jesuit Jakob Rem.

The relationship with her birth family improved, with letters and occasional visits of her parents and her sister in Schwaz, but she never returned home.