God Be with You

Grace. mercy, and peace will be with you from God the Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love.

2 John 3

On September 19, 1945, missionary Darlene Deibler was liberated from the Japanese Prison Camp at Kampili, seventeen days after Japan had signed the Instrument of Surrender aboard the USS Missouri. She was in bad shape; having been subjected to years of physical suffering and mental torture.

Eight years before, Darlene and her husband, Russell, had landed as missionaries in New Guinea. Plunging into the work, they were making solid progress in building a growing church, aided by Darlene's dear friend and mentor, Dr. Robert Jaffray. Now both Russell and Dr. Jaffray were dead, and Darlene was leaving behind two lonely white crosses on the hillside. As a 28-year-old widow, she was returning home without a single possession. All her mementos and private keepsakes were gone, her loved ones were dead, and her body was debilitated by exhaustion, starvation, malaria, beriberi, and dysentery.

For over four years, she had witnessed atrocities that can scarcely be described. Prisoners all around her had suffered horrible deaths, and she herself had seen the inside of death cells. During that time, not one letter or package had reached her.

As the boat carried her from her island prison, she prayed a bitter prayer: "Lord, I'll never come to these islands again. They've robbed me of everything that was most dear to me."

Suddenly she heard voices, Indonesian voices ringing from the distance. There on the shore were those who had come to know the Lord through her mission, raising their voices, singing: "God be with you till we meet again./ By His counsels guide, uphold you,/ With His sheep securely fold you;/ God be with you till we meet again."

Darlene later wrote in her autobiography, Evidence Not Seen; "This song released the waters of bitterness that had flooded my soul, and the hurt began to drain from me as my tears flowed in a steady stream. The healing had begun. I knew then that someday, God only knew when, I would come back to these my people and my island home."

"God Be With You Till We Meet Again," was written by Jeremiah Rankin, president of Howard University, the great African-American college in the nation's capital. He wrote it, he said, after discovering that the term "good-bye" meant "God be with you."

Taken from the book: Then Sings My Soul

Note:You might want to scroll to the bottom and pause my playlist before beginning the clip. =)