I am thankful that I could honestly say this about my pretty wife, Jamie. Do click through to read the end of this post.
Kevin DeYoung:
I was moved by this touching description of Charles Hodge with his fifty-one year-old dying wife Sarah.
The next death that visited Hodge was infinitely dearer to him. On Christmas Day 1849, just four months after her return to Princeton with her daughter and grandchild, Sarah “softly & sweetly fell asleep in Jesus.” She most probably fell victim to uterine cancer.
Sarah’s health had begun to deteriorate soon after her return, and by December her condition was such that Hodge had lost all hope of recovery. In her final weeks, he personally nursed Sarah, spending countless hours simply lying next to her. During these times, he held her hand, and conversed with her when she had the strength. The depth of their love remained so intense that Hodge later commented that “to the last she was like a girl in love.” During her final weeks, Sarah asked Hodge to tell her in detail “how much you love me,” and they spent time recounting the high points of their life together.
Hodge’s last hours with his wife were particularly poignant. As her life ebbed away, Sarah looked at her children gathered around her bed and quietly murmured “I give them to God.” Hodge then asked her if she had thought him a devoted husband to which she replied as “she sweetly passed her hand over” his face: “There never was such another.” (Charles Hodge, 258)
Married couples, if you imagine that your final moments together will be like this . . .
Read the rest here.
HT: Ann Voskamp
Praise God I can say this about my husband as well! This post reminds me of a very special couple that lived almost that very account in their last days together. It does cast a renewed perspective and make me thankful for the day I have.
I’ve been in this excruciating place, with my first and late wife, except she was only 40. Almost everything else was the same – not the words, but the experience of closeness, and the giving to God.
May we all give all our loved ones to God in the same way, even in their good health, so we can love them rightly – not loving them directly in our own strength as if they belonged to us, but loving them instead THROUGH Christ Jesus.
I lost my Sara (no “h”!) seven years ago, but through that transaction, that translation off of our planet, Jesus has secured our relationship through all eternity, with a brief but ultimately tolerable hiatus. Even in remarriage, my invisible bond to Sara is secure and certain, through the promises of a faithful God.
Best of all, her suffering is past, her healing is complete, and SHE gets to see Jesus before the rest of us! Our redeemer redeems to the uttermost – let’s believe it, fiercely!
Thanks, Chris, for another great post.
TJ, thanks so much for sharing your hope. I pray that people who read this post will take time to read the comments.