| Things to Live For |
Chapter 16 |
Page 6 |
We may, then, also make this same committal of our life when we come to what we call dying. That was what Jesus did: “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.” It is hard for us to see our friends die. It seems to us that they will miss our love, and that death will somehow harm them. But we are mistaken. They will be kept as no mother ever kept a child, and some day we shall get them back again in radiant beauty.
“We are quite sure
That he will give them back–
Bright, pure, and beautiful;
We know he will but keep
Our own and his until we fall asleep;
We know he does not mean
To break the strands reaching between
The Here and There.
He does not mean–though heaven be fair–
To change the spirits entering there;
That they forget
The eyes upraised and wet,
The lips too still for prayer
The mute despair.
He will not take
The spirits which he gave, and make
The glorified so new
That they are lost to me and you.
I do believe
They will receive
Us, you and me, and be so glad
To meet us, that when most I would grow sad,
I just begin to think about the gladness,
And the day
When they shall tell us all about the way
That they have learned to go–
Heaven’s pathways show.
My lost, my own, and I
Shall have so much to see together by and by.
I do believe that just the same sweet face,
But glorified, is waiting in the place
Where we shall meet, if only I
Am counted worth in that by and by.
I do believer that God will give a sweet surprise
To tear stained, saddened eyes,
And that his heaven will be
Most glad, most tided through with joy
For you and me,
As we have suffered most.
God never made
Spirit for spirit, answering shade for shade,
And placed them side by side–
So wrought in one, though separate, mystified,
And meant to break
The quivering threads between.
When we shall wake,
I am quite sure we will be very glad
That for a little while we were so sad.”
We need never fear to commit our loved ones into the hands of Christ when they leave us; nor need we be afraid, when to us the hour of departing comes, to breathe out our spirit into the same strong, gentle hands of eternal love.
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