Years ago I read a sermon by Dr. Arthur John Gossip, called “When Life Tumbles In, What Then?” He preached it the day after his beloved wife had suddenly died. He closed with these words:
I don’t think you need to be afraid of life. Our hearts are very frail, and there are places where the road is very steep and very lonely, but we have a wonderful God. And, as Paul puts it, “What can separate us from his love? Not death,” he writes immediately. No, not death, for standing in the roaring of the Jordan, cold with its dreadful chill and very conscious of it terror, of its rushing, I, too, like Hopeful in Pilgrim’s Progress, can call back to you who one day in your turn will have to cross it, “Be of good cheer, my brother, for I feel the bottom and it is sound.”