[This reflection was written by Michael Goble and published in the weekly news bulletin of Horley Baptist Church, 18/Sep/2022]
We shall always remember the first emotional speech of King Charles after the sad death of the Queen, as he made his promises for the future and also tearfully paid tribute to her as a monarch and a mother. Towards the end he said, “And to my darling Mama, as you begin your last great journey to join my dear late Papa, I want simply to say this: thank you. Thank you…”.
It was those words about a last great journey and joining his Papa that reminded me of a poem, attributed to Victor Hugo, the author of “Les Miserables”:
I am standing upon the seashore.
A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength. I stand and watch her until at length she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other. Then someone at my side says; “There, she is gone!”
Gone where?
Gone from my sight. That is all.
She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side and she is just as able to bear her load of living freight to her destined port. Her diminished size is in me, not in her. And just at the moment when someone at my side says, “There, she is gone!” there are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices ready to take up the glad shout; “Here she comes!”
That is dying.
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As the Queen reached her heavenly home, her dear husband, Prince Philip, and many others of her family and friends she knew during her long life would have been watching for her. No doubt the cry would have gone up, “Here she comes!”
But most of all, her King and Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, Whom she witnessed to and often spoke of during her life, would have been watching too. I am sure that as He greeted her, He would have said to her, as He promised in Matt. 25:21, “Well done, my good and faithful servant!”
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Contributed by Michael Goble; © the Author
