The Hymn Born from a Breaking Heart

On the evening of June 6, 1882, Scottish minister George Matheson sat alone while his sister's wedding celebration carried on nearby. Matheson, nearly blind since his teenage years, was overwhelmed by what he later described only as "the most severe mental suffering." Tradition holds that the woman he once loved had left him years earlier because of his blindness — and now, surrounded by someone else's love story, that old wound tore open again.

In five minutes, he wrote one of the most beloved hymns in the English language: O Love That Wilt Not Let Me Go. The words poured out of grief, not triumph: "I rest my weary soul in Thee; I give Thee back the life I owe."

What Matheson reached for in his darkest moment wasn't bitterness. He wrote about a love that refused to release him — even when human love had. He discovered that the Almighty's love doesn't depend on what we can offer or how whole we appear. It holds on when everything else lets go.

Paul knew this same unshakeable love: "Nothing in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 8:39).

When human love falters — and it sometimes will — there is a Love that will not let you go. Not because you earned it. Because that is simply who God is.