More reflections...

The following are excerpts taken from the book: 'From Grief to Glory' by James W. Bruce III. (A book written for grieving parents who have lost a little one.)


He was the music of our home,
A day that knew no night.
The fragrance of our garden bower,
A thing all smiles and light.

Above the couch we bent and prayed
In the half-lighted room,
As the bright hues of infant life
Sank slowly into gloom.

The form remained; but there was now
No soul our love to share;
Farewell, with weeping hearts, we said,
Child of our love and care.

But years are moving quickly past,
And time will soon be o'er;
Death shall be swallowed up in life
On the immortal shore.

Then shall we clasp that hand once more,
And smooth that golden hair;
Then shall we kiss those lips again,
When we shall meet him there.

-Horatius Bonar (A nineteenth-century Scottish minister and hymn writer, He and his wife lost five children in successive bereavements.)



This is my comfort in my affliction, that your promise gives me life. (Psalm 119:50)



Wherefore should I make my moan,
Now the darling child is dead?
He to early rest is gone,
He to paradise is fled.
I shall go to him, but he
Never shall return to me.

God forbids his longer stay,
God recalls the precious loan,
God hath taken him away,
From my bosom to his own.
Surely what he wills is best!
Happy in his will, I rest.

Faith cries out, it is the Lord!
Let him do as seems him good.
Be thy holy name adored,
Take the gift awhile bestowed;
Take the child no longer mine,
Thine he is, forever thine.

-Charles Wesley (lost five of his eight children)



I am happy in spirit, but the flesh is sorrowful and will not be content; the parting grieves me beyond measure. -Martin Luther



Ah! when the mighty wings of the angel of death nestle over your heart's treasures, and his black shadow broods over your home, it shakes the heart with a shuddering terror and a horror of great darkness....As I stand by the little grave, and think of the poor ruined clay within, that was a few days ago so beautiful, my heart bleeds. But as I ask, 'Where is the soul whose beams gave that clay all its beauty and preciousness?' I triumph.

-Robert L. Dabney (lost three sons to diphtheria, two of those sons died within two weeks of each other)



What'er my God ordains is right;
here shall my stand be taken;
Though sorrow, need, or death be mine,
Yet I am not forsaken.
My Father's care is round me there;
He holds me that I shall not fall;
And so to Him I leave it all.

-Samuel Rodigast



"Real grief is not easily comforted. It comes like ocean waves...some are small...others are stronger...and cause you to stagger. Then there are the overwhelming waves with an undertow that can turn your world upside down and drag you out into deep waters. In times such as those, the mourner desperately needs an anchor. And, indeed, God has promised his people a blessing if they patiently endure. He has guaranteed the promise so that we might lay hold of the hope set before us. This hope is the anchor of the soul, and it is sure and steadfast (Heb. 6:19)" (p. 70-71)



No doubt affliction now seems to you a far more intense and real thing than it ever did before; the griefs of human life are far more awful and terrific to you now than they ever before seemed. But the power of grace is the master of them...

-Letter from a friend to Dr. Robert Dabney



Safe in the arms of Jesus,
safe on his gentle breast,
There by his love o'er shaded,
sweetly my soul shall rest.
Hark! 'tis the voice of angels,
borne in a song to me
Over fields of glory, over the jasper sea.
Safe in the arms of Jesus,
safe on his gentle breast,
There by his love o'er shaded,
sweetly my soul shall rest.

-Fanny Crosby (She wrote over 9,000 hymns, was blind and lost her only child. She was known to give everything she had and to think nothing of herself.)