DEATH AS A GIFT – NOT AN ENEMY
G. Campbell Morgan knew dark shadows in his own life and yet always found the grace of God was sufficient for every need. One of his greatest sorrows was the sudden deaths of his sister and his youngest daughter. He called their deaths “the sacrament of sorrow.”
His 12-year-old sister and only childhood playmate, Lizzie, died suddenly in 1873. Overcome with grief, the 10-year-old boy ran from the house to lie weeping on her grave, desiring nothing more than to join her in death. Jill Morgan wrote, “Pneumonia was difficult to fight in those days, and aided by physical frailty and will to survive, almost claimed another victim. But God has a special mission for this child . . . .”
That loss was exacerbated 23 years later when his first-born daughter, Gwennie, then only 5 years of age, died suddenly in 1896. These were losses he felt throughout the rest of his life. In an early sermon, Death Abolished, preached in 1911 at Westminster Chapel, Book 5, pg. 100, he alluded to Gwennie’s death: “I pass no day when I am not conscious of the nearness of at least one who entered the veil 16 years ago. I know the touch of her spirit upon mine . . . .”
When asked how he dealt with his young daughters as well as his sister’s death and why they should have left this life at such a tender age and how he thought of God’s reasoning for these shadows in his life he said: “Only God can answer that questioning and when I attempted to consider that questioning I was reminded that the One Who might give me the answers was the very One that sent His young Son to death in behalf of not only my daughter as well as my sister and myself included." By His death he would be reunited with both his sister and his daughter and that would be forever. They are now mine as they have never been before.
He encircles our sorrows with His own. He is our dwelling place forever and He has everlasting arms that enfold us. And in His arms there is neither sadness nor weakness. That which we believed to be our enemy at last is our friend and one of the gifts from God (1 Cor. 3:21-23).
“Therefore let no man glory in men. For all things are yours; Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours; And ye are Christ's; and Christ is God's.” God has reasons that only He can bring answers and understanding. And it takes time for understanding to finally come while we rest in His arms.
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