“Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.”
Psalm 116:15
Edna Hamlin was a saintly old woman. She sat humped over in a wheelchair the many years she lived in a nursing home. Edna and I were pen pals those years. Her letters not only overflowed with smiles and joyful observations about nurses and friends, but her envelopes would spill over with gospel tracts, crocheted bookmarks, and copies of poems and hymns. Edna was my inspiration.
I just received word that Edna passed away. All at once I feel sadness and joy. Perhaps this poem explains why.
I am standing upon the seashore. A ship at my side spreads
her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength, and I stand and watch her until at length she hands like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky come down to mingle with each other.
Then someone at my side says: “There! She’s gone.”
Gone where? Gone from my sight — that is all.
She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was
when she left my side, and just as able to bear her load
of living freight to the place of destination. Her diminished
size is in me, not in her; and just at the moment when
someone at my side says, “There! She’s gone,” there are
other eyes watching her coming, and other voices ready to
take up the glad shout, “There she comes!”
And that is Dying!
Author Unknown
The length of our days is in Your hands, O Lord. What counts, though, is not how long we live but how we spend those days. Give us wisdom to know how short, how fleeting life really is.
