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From Grief to Glory
By Bill Marsh | February 1, 2008
The death of children is often far-removed from our daily experience, which is a significant change from the previous centuries of human existence. Several years ago, James Bruce wrote From Grief to Glory: Spiritual Journeys of Mourning Parents after losing his own infant son. Drawing from the writings of Luther, Calvin, Bach, Spurgeon, Rutherford, Dabney, and others, Bruce writes of hard truths with a manly tenderness borne of his own experience. In preparing to preach for a memorial service last night, I re-read this book on Tuesday morning. Providentially, Nathan Williams at the Shepherds’ Fellowship posted a review of it on Wednesday. It is pure, solid-granite, Biblical truth wrapped in the warm sobs of the saints of previous generations. I cannot commend it enough as a resource for grieving parents and all who love them. An excerpt, from a letter Samuel Rutherford wrote to a woman whose daughter had recently died:
Your lease on your daughter has run out; and you can no more quarrel against your great Superior for taking what He owns, than a poor tenant can complain when the landowner takes back his own land when the lease is expired. Do you think she is lost, when she is only sleeping in the bosom of the Almighty? If she were with a dear friend, your concern for her would be small, even though you would never see her again. Oh now, is she not with a dear friend, and gone higher, upon a certain hope that you shall see her again at the resurrection? Your daughter was a part of yourself; and, therefore, being as it were cut in half, you will be grieved. But you have to rejoice; though a part of you is on earth, a great part of you is glorified in heaven.
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