DECEMBER 13
I feel a strong immortal hope,
which bears my mournful spirit up
beneath its mountain load;
redeemed from death, and grief, and pain,
I soon shall find my friend again
within the arms of God.
—CHARLES WESLEYOur images come from our experiences. The image of being
cradled in the arms of God is an old and much-used analogy
of a love as primal, as necessary, as that of a parent cradling
an infant child. What greater security could we imagine?
If we have been parents ourselves, we know how that
feels, and that a parent’s need to cradle a helpless newborn
child is as strong as the infant’s need to be held. If we have
not been parents, we have certainly witnessed—in friends
and family—this kind of tenderness, of absolute mutual at-
tention. What better could we hope for than that our loved
one who has gone on into death is welcomed by a love as
nurturing, as all-embracing, as that—a love to which we,
too, shall be heirs when it is our time to go?
I commend my dear one to the arms of the all-embracing love.