51. One Thing Have I Desired
Chapter 51
One Thing Have I Desired
On the wall of my study hangs a thin brass Celtic cross with the ancient inscription, IHS, for In hoc signe vinces (“In this sign conquer”). It used to lie on the table next to Amma’s bed where she could finger it in the night and put her mind on those brave words. She would, by grace, by her Lord’s cross and passion, keep on conquering, keep on climbing, keep on being God’s “athlete” in her bed. She asked one of the men to cut a large cross out of black poster paper to be hung where she could see it in the dimmest light, to be for her a reminder “of pain far greater than mine.”
Another comfort in the painful nights was the text which Nancy had given her to allay her fears about becomimg a burden. From Revelation 2:9, 10, the words I KNOW . . . FEAR NOT. . . were inscribed on a piece of teak and hung with a light over them.
Amy’s friend Bishop Pakenham Walsh sent her the words of the hymn “In Heavenly Love Abiding,” by A. L. Waring. She kept them also by her bed, especially comforted by the last stanza:
Green pastures are before me
Which yet I have not seen,
Bright skies will soon be o’er me
Where the dark clouds have been.
My hope I cannot measure,
My path to life is free,
My Savior has my treasure,
And He will walk with me.
In one of her last dictated letters she included these words, and added, “I am very happy and content. Green pastures are before me, and my Savior has my treasure—the DF.”
Mary Mills reported in December 1950, “Our Amma is going through a very difficult bit of the way. She is definitely losing ground on this side, and the longing grows ever more for the day of Deliverance/’
Poor Jeevanie, so often irritated with Amma in years gone by, but loving her now through the experience of ministering to her helplessness, had a new worry in the last two weeks. Amma had made her promise that she would see to it that no one put her in a coffin. No one had ever put anybody in a coffin in Dohnavur. It was always the simple pallet and the blanket of flowers. But Amma, not without reason, feared it might occur to somebody to do something special for her. She wanted none of it. So Jeevanie promised.
“But it rained for two weeks,” she told me. “I could not help thinking. All that water—in God’s garden—shouldn’t we—?”
As the year 1950 gave way to 1951 the weather was stiflingly hot, a sore trial to Amy even in healthy times. Now it was almost more than the wracked body could bear. She stopped eating. The old cystitis recurred. Her circulation, in the doctor’s words, “packed up.” She whose eyes, both spiritual and physical, had been keen and quick and penetrating to see far more than most, lay without seeming to notice anything very much.
During the second week of January, 1951, Amy began to sleep a great deal. Then she fell into a coma, and it was then that some of her children saw her for the first time. She had been unable for a long time to have the large groups to her room as she used to, so there were people in the Family, which numbered nearly nine hundred, who had never seen her face. Now they could do so without disturbing her. They came quietly and were allowed to stand by her bed and look. The birds in the verandah cage, it is avowed, were silent then.
She loved Bunyan’s story of the two pilgrims’ welcome at the Gate of the City:
Now, while they were thus drawing towards the Gates, behold a company of the Heavenly Host came out to meet them; to whom it was said, by the other two Shining Ones. These are the men that have loved our Lord, when they were in the world, and that have forsaken all for his holy name; and he hath sent us to fetch them, and we have brought them thus far on their desired journey, that they may go in and look their Redeemer in the face with joy. Then the Heavenly Host gave a great shout, saying, ‘Blessed are they that are called to the marriage-supper of the Lamb’. . . .
Now I saw in my dream that these two men went in at the Gate; and lo! as they entered, they were transfigured, and they had raiment put on that shone like gold. There were also that met them with harps and crowns and gave them to them; the harps to praise withal, and the crowns in token of honor. Then I heard in my dream that all the bells in the City rang again for joy; and that it was said unto them, ENTER YE INTO THE JOY OF YOUR LORD.
The children and their accals, the annachies and the sitties, the friends from the village who came to the Room of Peace could not help hoping for some last word, some glimpse of what the seemingly sightless eyes might be seeing. But Amy’s prayer had been that there would be no rending good-byes. She believed the Lord had promised, in 1938, that He would take her while she slept.
She had written of those who died as having been “carried by angels.”1 “It is all we know of how they go.”
So she went. By early morning of January 18, 1951 the appointed Shining Ones must have been dispatched to carry her on her so greatly desired journey. Others, we may believe, were waiting with the raiment, the harps, the crowns in their hands. Some were poised to begin the pealing of the bells.
From little Dohnavur she who had loved her Lord and very truly had forsaken all for His holy name was called, and the bells in the House of Prayer played the music she had asked for, that to which her own words had been set:
One thing have I desired, my God, of Thee,
That will I seek, Thine house be home to me.
I would not breathe an alien, other air,
I would be with Thee, O Thou fairest Fair.
For I would see the beauty of my Lord,
And hear Him speak, Who is my heart’s Adored.
O Love of loves, and c an such wonder dwell
In Thy great Name of names, Immanuel?
Thou with Thy child, Thy child at home with Thee,
O Lord my God, I love, I worship Thee.2
While she “went in and looked her Redeemer in the face with joy,” those she had left behind, the people who loved her, came during the morning to see her face one more time. They covered her bed with flowers. At noon she was carried to the village church where, for an hour and a half, the boys of the Family sang while the people streamed by. One of Amma’s oldest friends in India, Bishop G. T. Selwyn of Tinnevelly, led the service, with others taking part, including two Indian men who spoke of her and her work, giving glory to God. Between twelve and fifteen hundred cards were distributed, giving verses on eternal life and the way of salvation.
Barbara Osman wrote:
As the chimes in the tower rang out the tune of “Ten Thousand Times Ten Thousand,” Amma was carried to the House of Prayer and our own service was held there an hour later. The House of Prayer was filled with our men and women, school boys and girls, together with representatives from the servants and work-people, and friends from the village. The “Widow of the Jewels” was there, finding it hard not to sob aloud. Neela, who has been with Amma all through these long years, was standing erect as we joined in singing “Alleluia! The strife is o’er, the battle won.”
John read some verses—Matthew 25:21, II Timothy 4:6-8, and Philippians 1:19-21—then, after thanksgiving and prayer, we moved slowly to God’s Garden, singing all the time. It was a very long stream of people, mostly clad in white, with children among them, waving ferns instead of palms as a sign of victory.
By the graveside Devabakti read I Corinthians 15:50-58 in a gloriously clear and steady voice, though his eyes were full of tears. When Amma had been laid to rest, the boys led the way round the Garden, which we encircled, coming back to the huge old tamarind tree at the entrance, and pausing there for the end of the service.
It was Tara who led the unaccompanied singing, helped by a younger sister. Neither of them faltered. God’s grace was seen in all those who are women now (some of them grey-haired)—Chellalu, Lola, and Leela, Preena, Suseela, Rukma, and too many more to mention.
At seven o’clock we gathered once more in the House of Prayer to sing of the Heavenly Country, where many of our Family are now, safe at Home forever.
None of the graves in God’s Garden is marked by a headstone. Only one is marked at all. Under the old tamarind is a stone table for the pleasure of some of Amma’s friends, the dear birds. On the pedestal is inscribed a single word, AMMAI. It is the polite form of her mother-name. Beneath it is the date when they laid her there under the tamarind.
Bird table marking Amy’s grave.
1. Toward Jerusalem, p. 39.
2. Ibid, p. 116.