O Love, That Wilt Not Let Me Go

O Love That Wilt Not Let Me Go

There are hundreds of hymns in every hymn book, but how many of those hymns do you know? If you are like most of us, you have some old favorites that you treasure and then a couple dozen others that you might recognize when they are sung and you have little knowledge of the rest of your hymnal.

One of the hymns that very few people seem to know is "O Love, That Wilt Not Let Me Go.” It has an amazing tune but it’s hard to sing, so most churches don’t. Like many hymns, it was first written as a poem with the music added later.

George Matheson, the author of those words, was blinded at an early age, yet he was an accomplished scholar and a godly man. On the eve of his sisters’ marriage he found himself experiencing severe mental anguish, thinking back to his own engagement. He was to be married to the love of his life but she abandoned him after she learned that he was going blind. He was devastated and scarred for life.

In his anguish, he wrote a poem and gave us his powerful words of a love that will never let us go ... a light that follows us every place ... a joy that seeks us regardless of our pain ... and a cross that lifts us up.

What great words were passed down to us through another man’s suffering! He used his own pain to create something that you and I can read and be encouraged by when we, too, are suffering.