In Memory of Dottie Rambo
Gospel music has lost yet another of its all-time greats…Dottie Rambo died Sunday when her bus ran off the road while traveling from Missouri to a concert in Texas during inclement weather. She was 74.
A legend in both southern gospel and country Christian music, she wrote or co-wrote something in the neighborhood of 2,500 songs. These include well-known number such as “I Go to the Rock”, “Sheltered in the Arms of God”, “If That Isn’t Love”, “I’ve Never Been This Homesick Before”, “Tears Will Never Stain the Streets”, and “Build My Mansion (Next Door to Jesus)”.  She toured many years as a performance artist, both as a soloist and with her family group, the Singing Rambos.  On top of all this, she was an all-around classy lady.
Congratulations, Mrs. Dottie…you’ve made it to your mansion, and it’s just as you ordered it…next door to Jesus.
If I could count all the tears that have fallen,
They would seem like an ocean to me;
And if my heart were a window that you could look through,
Oh, the pain and scars you would see.
Well, I’ve never met one man without sorrow,
And I’ve never looked into eyes with no pain;
But I know a land where grief is a stranger,
And songs of joy are the only songs they sing.
I have questioned the loss of a loved one.
The grave seems so final and cold;
But we’ll meet again where death has no victory,
In a land where we’ll never grow old.
Tears will never stain the streets of that city;
No wreaths of death on my mansion door!
Teardrops aren’t welcome beyond the gates of glory,
‘Cause the heart will never break anymore.