So Beautiful to Go!
Frances Havergal got very sick in her 40s, and one day she started to get severe pain that turned out to be peritonitis. After 10 days the doctor said that she probably wouldn’t survive more than a few hours longer, and as her family gathered around her, Frances said with a smile “Beautiful, too good to be true!” A little while later she looked up and said “Splendid to be so near the gates of heaven!”, and as her last hours passed on she would often whisper “so beautiful to go”!
She asked her brother to sing a hymn called “Jerusalem My Happy Home”, and as he sang it she spoke again and said “it is the Lord Jesus that is so dear to me! I can’t tell how precious! How much He has been to me!”
Faith's Last Blessing
Some time later she herself began to sing “Jesus I Will Trust Thee”, and then she uttered her last words “Now it is all over, blessed rest!” And she was gone. She 42 years old.
I don’t know how I am going to die, of course. None of us do. But I hope that, should I be on my death bed one day, I will also have the name of Jesus on my lips like she did! I hope that my faith will be so strong that I will be able to say “it’s so beautiful to go that blessed rest!”
You see, those who place their faith in Christ have two great hopes: the first is for new life on earth. We believe, that having placed our faith in Christ, his grace becomes active in our lives in a powerful way, and so we can live life with a new quality of joy and peace in His name.
Eternal Hope Found
But our second great hope is for eternal life. Life after death. Jesus said that whoever believes in Him will live even though they die. And this is a wonderful hope! Because if not even death can take away our hope, then nothing can!
Havergal’s hope for life eternal shone through her right at the end. Friends, if Jesus is your Saviour, your God, your Friend… you too can have such hope. In Him you can have not only a new life here on earth with His Spirit in your heart, but a “blessed rest” where it is “good to go” even when you die.
Praise God for the hope He gave Frances Havergal, his precious daughter.
Praise God for the hope He gives you and me – His precious children – for this life and the next.
