O Love that Will Not Let Me Go

"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?"
Romans 8:35 (NIV)

I was privileged to recently attend the Briarwood Hymn Festival conducted by Reverend Clay Campbell, Briarwood's Minister of Worship. Clay has been our church's worship leader for the last 23 years. The Hymn Festival was his farewell concert. In an age where most churches have given way completely to power point and contemporary praise songs, Clay has continued to combine the newer praise songs with traditional hymns. The result has been what Pastor Reeder affectionately calls "blended" worship. New songs continue to be introduced and added, but old hymns of the faith continue to be sung as well. To be sure, it's a hard task to completely satisfy the "only traditional" or "only contemporary" folks, but most of the rest of us have benefited from the blended approach.

Clay's farewell concert was entitled "O Love that Will Not Let Me Go."  Program selections included the following:

• The Church's One Foundation and How Firm a Foundation in an orchestra medley entitled "Our Foundation."

• Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah

• How Lovely Is Thy Dwelling Place (Brahms)

• Holy Spirit a new hymn by Keith and Kristyn Getty

• Heaven Medley - a lively New Orleans jazz arrangement of When We All Get to Heaven and When the Roll Is Called Up Yonder played by members of the Alabama Symphony orchestra

• Great Is Thy Faithfulness - one of my personal hymn favorites sung by the congregation

• This Is My Father's World

• The Wondrous Cross

• Be Thou My Vision - my other personal favorite!

• Holy, Holy, Holy - sung by the congregation

• Be Still My Soul

• Now Thank We All Our God

• How Great Thou Art

• Thou Gracious God Whose Mercy Leads

As I listened to the strains of the old familiar hymns, I remembered all of the Sunday night hymn sing alongs that we had at my home church. I grew up in a large Southern Baptist church and at least once a month we had hymn sing alongs. We also had hymns to memorize as part of our children and youth choir programs. I remembered my Daddy's funeral and the Billy Graham Crusades when the choir sang How Great Thou Art. I thought about James Bruce and how he loves to sing This Is My Father's World. But by far, the most poignant moment of the night for me was when the choir sang O Love That Will Not Let Me Go. Just before the choir sang the great hymn, the story behind the song appeared on the overhead screens.

At age 20 George Matheson (1842-1906) was engaged to be married, but began going blind. His fiancee decided she could not go through life with a blind husband and broke their engagement. Before losing his sight, Matheson had written two books of theology and some feel that if he had retained his sight he could have been the greatest leader of the church of Scotland in his day. A special providence was that George’s sister offered to care for him. The day came, however, in 1882, when his sister fell in love and prepared for marriage herself. The evening before the wedding, George’s whole family left to get ready for the next day’s celebration. Matheson was alone and facing the prospect of living the rest of his life without the one person who had come through for him. On top of this, he was doubtless reflecting on his own aborted wedding day twenty years earlier. It is not hard to imagine the fresh waves of grief washing over him that night.

In the darkness of that moment George Matheson wrote O Love That Will Not Let Me Go. Matheson later remarked that it took him five minutes to write the hymn and it was the only hymn he ever wrote that required no editing.

O Love that will not let me go I rest my weary soul in theeI give thee back the life I oweThat in thine ocean depths its flowMay richer, fuller be

O Light that foll’west all my wayI yield my flick’ring torch to theeMy heart restores its borrowed rayThat in thy sunshine’s blaze its dayMay brighter, fairer be

Stabilizing lines, especially for those in darkness.

O Cross that liftest up my headI dare not ask to fly from theeI lay in dust life’s glory deadAnd from the ground there blossoms redLife that shall endless be

Imagine writing those words in five minutes with no editing! But it wasn't just Matheson's words penned from the 1800s which moved me. I was struck that the hymn's selection actually reflected Clay Campbell's own personal testimony. Clay and his wife Penny lost their beautiful twenty-year old daughter Trevelyn in a tragic car accident almost three years ago. Matheson's words "O love that will not let me go" are as true for the Campbells today as they were for Matheson when he wrote them. The reality of God's love is that nothing- neither death nor life, neither angels or demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:38).

Nothing shall separate us from God's love- not because we're holding on to Him, but because He is holding on to us.

O Love that will not let me go!

Amen and Amen!

Donna