News like Job’s visiting Old Friends

Slider Sonnenuntergang

Oh take my hand

Sunday:  I journey from the north of Schleswig-Holstein to Dürne in North Rhine-Westphalia.  There I will give the report of Diospi Suyana to a parish in the evening.  On the way, I visit old friends.  We have not seen each other for several years and I am concerned as I shake their hands.  As soon as I’m sitting in their living room, they tell of a family tragedy that has brought death into their lives.  I swallow.  I am not prepared for this news.  This suffering would have broken many people, perhaps even myself.  How does a couple even get out of bed in the morning after such an experience?

“What has helped me in the last few months,” said the elderly lady, “is the ancient hymn of Julie Hausmann O Take My Hand.”  The third verse is as follows:

Though oft Thy power but faintly may stir my soul,
With Thee, my Light in darkness, I reach the goal.
Take then my hand, dear Father, and lead Thou me,
Till at my journey’s end I dwell with Thee.

Julie Hausmann was a German-Baltic poet.  She traveled by boat to Africa some 150 years ago to meet her betrothed and marry him there.  She was stunned that he did not pick her up at the port, so she struck out on her own to the mission station.  There she was met with the darkest hours of her life.  She was led to a fresh grave in which her fiancé had been buried a few days earlier.  It is said that she wrote the lines of her world famous song that night. / KDJ

Click to access the login or register cheese