O Love That Will Not Let Me Go
abracad, · Categories: wise wordsI must have sung this piece a hundred times at Spiritualist church without ever pondering its significance, though I had noticed it was a little different and more poignant that the standard Christian hymn. But last week, after a difficult period that had caused me to question myself intensely, I found the service, and particularly this song, especially thouht-provoking. Inspired to review the lyrics at leisure I did some searching on the Web and discovered it was written by George Matheson, a blind Scottish priest, at a time of intense mental anguish. It is said Matheson was inspired to write it in just five minutes.
Although ostensibly sad, Matheson appears to be describing his own passing, I interpret it as a message of comfort and optimism. However hard this life seems at times, however great a significance we place upon it, in reality we are all part of some infinitely greater whole to which we shall return, both enriching and being enriched by that universal oneness that we might call Spirit or God. Life is thus but a single step along an endless path.
The message is not an excuse to take life lightly, Matheson himself overcame the severe handicap of blindness to enter the ministry, rather it is that having done our best we need not beat ourselves up knowing that our experiences great or small shall some day all be absorbed back into the source of all things.
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 followest all my way,
I yield my flickering 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;
IÂ 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.
This beautiful rendition is by David Phelps, courtesy youtube.com
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