The Hymn Written Through Tears

On the evening of June 6, 1882, Scottish pastor George Matheson sat alone in his study while the rest of his family celebrated his sister's wedding. Matheson was nearly blind, and years earlier, his fiancée had broken their engagement when she learned his condition was permanent. Now, as his sister left to begin her new life, the weight of his own loneliness pressed in like a tide.

In that raw, aching moment, Matheson picked up his pen and wrote the hymn "O Love That Will Not Let Me Go" in less than five minutes. The words poured out as if they had been waiting his whole life to be spoken: "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."

Matheson did not write about a love he wished for. He wrote about a Love that was already holding him — a Love that had been pursuing him through every loss, every dark room, every door that closed in his face. He discovered what the apostle Paul declared in Romans 8 — that nothing in all creation can separate us from the love of God.

Here is the mystery of divine love: it does not wait for our lives to come together before it shows up. The Almighty meets us precisely in the place where human love has failed, and there He says, "I will not let you go."