By Sandra Gilkerson
“O Love, That Wilt Not Let Me Go”
I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving kindness.
Jeremiah 31:3
Written by: George Matheson, 1842 – 1902
This hymn was written by an esteemed Scottish minister who was totally blind. In his own words, Dr Matheson did leave this account.
“My hymn was composed in the manse of Innelan on the evening of the 6th of June,1882 when I was forty years of age. I was alone in the manse at the time. It was the night of my sister’s marriage and the rest of the family was staying in Glosgow.
Something happened to me, which was known only to myself, and caused me the most severe mental suffering. The hymn was the fruit of that suffering. It was the quickest bit of work I ever did in my life.
I had the impression of having it dictated to me by some inward voice rather than of working it out myself.  I am quite sure that the whole work was completed in five minutes, and equally sure that it never received at my hands any retouching or correction.
I have no natural gift of rhythm. All the other verses I have ever written are manufactured articles, this came like a dayspring from on high.”
It is thought that this hymn was the result of the reminder at his sisters wedding of the great disappointment that Matheson had experienced just before he was to have been married to his college fiancée. When told of his impending total blindness, she is said to have informed him, “I do not wish to be the wife of a
blind preacher.”
This may have prompted George to write this beautiful expression of an eternal love that will never be broken.
This was taken from “Amazing Grace” written and complied by Kenneth W. Osbeck. Â Kregel Publiations.
O Love that wilt not let me go, I rest my weary soul on Thee; I give Thee back the life I owe, that in Thine ocean depths its flow may richer, fuller be.
OÂ Light that follow’st all my way, I yield my flick’ring torch to Thee; my heart restores its
borrowed ray, that in Thy sunshine’s blaze its day may be brighter, fairer be.
O Joy that seekest  me thru pain, I cannot close my heart to Thee; I trace the rainbow thru the rain,
and feel the promise is not vain that morn shall tearless be.
O Cross that liftest up my head, I dare not ask to fly from Thee; I lay in dust life’s glory dead, and from the ground there blossoms red life that shall endless be.
Rest securely in God’s eternal love, regardless of human difficulty or suffering you may be experiencing.
Allow this musical message to help you. Our choir will be singing this song as part of their “message in song” for Easter.
