Memory is a funny thing. Not funny ha-ha, either. Just funny weird. I have fourteen personal passwords in my mind that pop up whenever I want them. E-mail accounts, computer security passwords, bank accounts and the like are all right there. Instant access. And I do not make all of them the same or even similar.  Oddly, I know the manufacture numbers to all the parts of a VW Beetle frontend, 1970-1973. I last worked on one thirty five years ago, but they are still stuck up there. On the other hand, I have done our income taxes for the last forty two years. Marsha’s social security number has never changed. Yet, I cannot remember that thing at all. I have to write it down before I begin so I can get it when I need it. The other day I was asked for my phone number, which I gave with confidence. After I got back to my car I thought that the number I gave didn’t sound quite right. I looked up my own number and saw that the area code was right, the next three numbers were right, but the last four digits were actually the last four digits of Marsha’s social security number. How does that happen? Marsha, on the other hand, also has passwords. To make it easy, she keeps them all pretty much the same. If you have one of her passwords you are pretty much home free. And she has to write that one down and hide it in her wallet. But, she can rattle off my social security number, she remembers all the family birthdays and she can give you the recipe for what we had for dinner on July 16, 1989. “Let’s see. That was a Sunday, so it would have been a slow cooker meal, middle of the summer, you had a softball game…….Oh, yes, it was a chicken stew. Kind of simple, but I used….”

          Sometimes the things you remember strike you odd later. We had a young man named Kevin on our church softball team. I was playing center field and he was playing left field. The other team had three in a row up who couldn’t hit the ball out of the infield, so Kevin came over to me to tell me his girlfriend was pregnant. I remember every word of that conversation like it was yesterday. I also remember standing there talking when one of the other team’s really poor hitters drove one over my head.

          And, I remember sitting by a hospital bed in 1988, holding the hand of a dear, sweet elderly lady as she was slipping away. She was telling me what she wanted in her funeral. Mostly, the music. Her daughter was sitting on the other side of her writing it all down amidst her own tears. The dear lady looked at me and said, “Oh, and I want you to sing my favorite song for the service!” I smiled at her, but cringed inside. Singing is not a strong point. “What song is that?” “Safe in the Arms of Jesus!” I started out my ministry career as a music and youth guy. The youth part worked out, but the music part—not so much. Still, I had worked at it and I knew almost all the songs in the hymn book. But I had never heard of that song. “OK,” I told her. What do you say to someone who was going to be gone in half an hour? You agree and then do the best you can.

          She passed in less than half an hour. My hope was that Marsha would know the song and would offer to sing it with me. That would work.

Marsha remembers songs like no one I know. She hadn’t heard it, either. I finally found it in an old, battered hymn book under a shelf at the church. I looked at the music and thought, “Is this a joke?” The musical score was dull with no imagination. The words were written by Fanny Crosby, one of the greatest of America’s song writers, and as I read them I was moved. Fanny was blind from the age of 18 months. She often said, “The next face I see will be that of Jesus!” A woman completely devoted to Christ, she wrote some of the best lyrics ever. Songs like "All the Way My Savior Leads Me," "Blessed Assurance," "Eye Hath Not Seen," “He Hideth My Soul," "More Like Jesus," "I Am Thine, O Lord,” "Jesus Is Tenderly Calling You Home,” “Near the Cross," "Pass Me Not, O Gentle Savior," "Praise Him! Praise Him! Jesus, Our Blessed Redeemer!," "Redeemed, How I Love to Proclaim It!" and so many more. But, I had never heard “Safe in the Arms of Jesus.”

Marsha looked at the music and told me that since I had promised, I had to sing it. I showed it to our organist, who was in her 60s. “I never, ever liked this song.” But she played it flawlessly. Deep sigh. So, I practiced with her. Somehow, when sung, the words and music kind of flowed. The words moved me greatly, especially since I had sat with this dying lady as she slipped away into the arms of Jesus.

          These are the words, written in the poetic style of the 19^th century, but written from the heart of a woman whose fondest desire was to see the face of her Savior and to rest in His arms.

Safe in the arms of Jesus,
Safe on His gentle breast;
There by His love o’ershaded,
Sweetly my soul shall rest.
Hark! ’tis the voice of angels
Borne in a song to me,
Over the fields of glory,
Over the jasper sea. Remember, this is a woman who had never seen the shade or fields or the jasper sea, but she knew that if it was God’s creation, it was truly amazing.

Refrain:
Safe in the arms of Jesus,
Safe on His gentle breast;
There by His love o’ershaded,
Sweetly my soul shall rest.

Safe in the arms of Jesus,
Safe from corroding care,
Safe from the world’s temptations;
Sin cannot harm me there.
Free from the blight of sorrow,
Free from my doubts and fears;
Only a few more trials,
Only a few more tears! Her life was not ideal. Blind at a time when that meant she was pitied and shut away, Fanny flourished. Married, raised a family, lived a life. But one that was very hard.

Jesus, my heart’s dear Refuge,
Jesus has died for me;
Firm on the Rock of Ages
Ever my trust shall be.
Here let me wait with patience,
Wait till the night is o’er;
Wait till I see the morning
Break on the golden shore. How much she wanted to see that morning in heaven! She likened it to a sunrise on the sea shore, which she had never seen, either, but it was God’s and that was enough.

          Memory is a funny thing. However, I have always wondered what it would have been like to have Fanny Crosby’s perspective. No memory of the beauty of Creation, but the wonderful anticipation of seeing it all. Kind of reverse memory.

          I sang that song at that funeral. It is the only time I ever sang it and I have never heard it in song since. But, oh my, I have read the words many times! To me it is the 19^th century equivalent of the present praise song “I Can Only Imagine.” I think what the words must have meant to our lady who passed and I think of what the words were like for Fanny Crosby when she saw the face of Jesus and stepped into His arms.

          Be safe. Be blessed.