A friend shared this Spurgeon quote with me today, and it is quite applicable for us as we wait for our sister Diane Garaway’s departure from this earth. Her daughter, my daughter-in-law Heather, sits at her bedside with other family members as she finishes her well-run race.
“I’m standing on the seashore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She’s an object of beauty and strength, and I stand and watch her until, at length, she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and the sky come down to mingle with each other. And then I hear someone at my side saying, ‘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 there are other voices ready to take up the glad shout, ‘Here she comes!’
And that is dying.”
0
0
This is beautiful. Thank you for passing it on.
Oh wow. What a lovely and beautiful perspective and image! I am going to treasure this forever and share it with others who are standing on that sorrowful shore.
Thank you so much for this update! Mrs. Garaway has been in my thoughts often the past weeks – I pray for her every time I think of her.
Praying for your daughter-in-law Heather, and all her family as well in this bittersweet time.
Beautiful quote from Spurgeon!
Beautiful. Thank you for sharing! May God’s peace surround Heather and the whole family.
I treasure this for so many reasons.
Thank you, Mrs. Wilson.
The Lord be with you, and with your children, and with your grandchildren.
Absolutely beautiful. Your family is in our prayers
This was beautiful!!!! Thanks for sharing it, my prayers are with Heather and her family. I have met her mom, She is such a sweet dear lady. It is hard to lose a loved one, but the beauty in it is that we will see them again when we are with Jesus, and that they are in such a better place, so much better that we could not imagine the magnificence and glory that they will get to experience with Christ.
I have only met Heather in passing at the Grace Agenda conference, but the recent posts of her mother’s battle and her family and community’s response has been deeply compelling! I have wept over the rich faith evidenced in this family. Thanks for sharing Spurgeon’s perspective of the Christian’s home-going.
Thank you, Nancy. It is a comfort. It’s not really sunset, it’s earth-turn.
Our perspective is not the only one… nor the most important.
Love this.
Was reminded of this, so just had to add: “And the ship went out into the High Sea and passed on into the West, until at last on a night of rain Frodo smelled a sweet fragrance on the air and heard the sound of singing that came over the water. And then it seemed to him that as in his dream in the house of Bombadil, the grey rain-curtain turned all to silver glass and was rolled back, and he beheld white shores and beyond them a far green country under a swift sunrise.”
I read this earlier this week and was encouraged by it…then came back to it today after learning of the sudden passing of a brother-in-law-to-be…it makes all the difference to think of those on the other shore saying “Here he is!”. Thank you for sharing.