Having spent some time out over the last week, I have had alot of time to read, study and just spend some much needed time with God. Worship has been an area of study for me, also I have been looking at love. How the love of God is unconditional and the difference between “agape” and “hasaq” both expressions of love, yet both so different.I stumbled across George Matheson in my studying. He was only a teenager when doctors told him he was going blind. Not to be denied, he pursued his studies, graduating from the University of Glasgow, Scotland, in 1861 at the age of 19. By the time he finished graduate seminary studies, he was sightless.
His fiancée returned his engagement ring with a note: “I cannot see my way clear to go through life bound by the chains of marriage to a blind man.”
Matheson never married. He adapted to his sightless world but never recovered from his broken heart. He became a powerful and poetic pastor, led a full and inspiring life. Yet occasionally the pain of his unrequited love flared up. This occurred decades later at his sister’s wedding.
The ceremony brought back memories of rejection and the love he had lost. In response, he turned to the unending love of God for comfort and penned these words on June 6, 1882:
“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.”
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