Treasures in Heaven

I would like to share with you parts of two letters that Samuel Rutherford (born around 1600) wrote to one of his parishioners on the occasion of the death of her infant daughter. I have sent these excerpts over the years to those grieving the death of a loved one, and the recipients have always been comforted by them, as I have over the years as well. 

As you read them, you can insert the actual name of someone you loved and lost. For ease of reading I have changed a few of the words to ones that are more familiar to modern-day readers. 

“You have lost a child: nay, she is not lost to you who is found to Christ. She is not sent away, but only sent before, like unto a star, which going out of our sight does not die and vanish, but shines in another hemisphere. You see her not, yet she does shine in another country.  If her hourglass was short, what she lacked of time she has gotten in eternity; and you have to rejoice that you have now a treasure up in heaven.”

And in another letter:

“Do you think her lost, when she is but sleeping in the bosom of the Almighty?  Think her not absent who is in such a friend’s house. Is she lost to you who is found in Christ?  If she were with a dear friend, although you should never see her again, your care for her would be but small. Oh, now, is she not with a dear Friend? And gone higher, upon a certain hope that you shall, in the Resurrection, see her again, when she shall neither be hectic nor consumed in body…  I do speak this fearing your weakness; for your daughter was a part of yourself; and therefore, nature in you, being as it were cut and halved, will indeed be grieved.  But you have to rejoice, that when a part of you is on earth, a great part of you is glorified in heaven.”