O Love That Wilt Not Let Me Go

Isn't this golden library beautiful? I'm definitely hanging out here today; although, something may have to be done about the sofa. I'm thinking a leather sofa would be nice.

Why am I thinking of libraries today? Because George Matheson wrote his famous hymn "O Love That Wilt Not Let Me Go" in a library away back in 1882. Yup, that's why.

Truth is, I haven't been doing very well. My emotions are all over the place. I have been angry and resentful, sad and pitiful, self-pitying and mean-spirited. I'm definitely not in a happy place. (My poor friend Claudi has dealt with the worst of it; she's probably nodding her head as she reads this.)

Yesterday was particularly rough. The garden needed to be put to bed, the lawn needed one last mowing, the leaves needed raking and mulching, so many things. And, as I was busy going about all that, I remembered something E.B. White once said while watching his aging wife tend her fall garden. It went a little like this: One has to admire the courage of a person who tends her garden in autumn knowing that she will not see the flowers bloom in spring. Well, that did it! I began to cry and could barely mow the lawn in tidy rows. Wait! I never mow my lawn in tidy rows. Anyway, if that wasn't the most self-pitying moment I've experienced yet... I'm not "aged" and I'm not "dying." It just feels as if I am.

Then, in the afternoon, I had to attend my mother's birthday gathering with all the clan and pretend to be cheerful. Bother! What a difficult thing it is this pretending.

Last evening, I found myself alone at home. Nothing new. I kind of prefer it that way truth to tell. I puttered at this and that and then decided to play the piano for a bit. That's when the hymn book fell open to Matheson's hymn. I hadn't played it for years...decades...but I played it last night. It was as if I were covered in gooey warm honey for about fifteen minutes there. Gooey warm honey and hot wet tears. The words resonated powerfully with me.

Later, when I had regained some composure, I remembered a book long forgotten. It's called 101 Hymn Stories by Kenneth W. Osbeck and it happened to be hiding on the bookshelf behind the first row of books. What I read there absolutely floored me. I was completely gobsmacked, I'm telling you. It proved to me once and for all that there are no coincidences. None.

I'll just quote it so that you will see what I mean:

"My hymn was composed in the manse of Innellan... I was at that time alone. It was the day of my sister's marriage... Something happened to me, which was known only to myself, and which caused me the most severe mental suffering. The hymn was the fruit of that suffering. It was the quickest bit of work I ever did in my life. I had the impression rather of having it dictated to me by some inward voice than of working it out myself. I am quite sure that the whole work was completed in five minutes, and equally sure it never received at my hands any retouching or correction. I have no natural gift of rhythm..."

You see, George Matheson was blind and the pastor of a 2000-member church in Edinburgh, Scotland. He was a popular and powerful preacher in his day. And, he depended upon his sister who was his helper to the point of learning Greek, Latin, and Hebrew herself so that she could better assist him.

Although I am far removed from George Matheson's station in life, I certainly understand being dependant upon a sister and the anguish that comes of change.


O Love that wilt not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in thee;
I give thee back the life I owe,
That in thine ocean depths its flow
May richer, fuller be.

O Light that foll’west all my way,
I yield my flick’ring torch to thee;
My heart restores its borrowed ray,
That in thy sunshine’s blaze its day
May brighter, fairer be.

O Joy that seekest me through pain,
I cannot close my heart to thee;
I trace the rainbow through the rain,
And feel the promise is not vain,
That morn shall tearless be.

O Cross that liftest up my head,
I dare not ask to fly from thee;
I lay in dust life’s glory dead,
And from the ground there blossoms red
Life that shall endless be.

Clicking on the words will take you to You Tube where David Phelps sings "O Love That Wilt Not Let Me Go."

Picture Source