| Strength and Beauty |
Chapter 17 |
Page 5 |
Life is ofttimes long enough to allow good men in later years to thank God for experiences which in earlier years they wept over as grievous disappointments and irreparable losses. The ploughshare seems to work hopeless destruction as it cuts its way across the field. But it is not long before it is seen that what seemed ruin is indeed a process in the renewal of life and beauty. By and by a golden harvest waves on the field.
We have found a great secret of peace when we have learned to see the hand of God in the withholding of what we sought and in the taking away of our cherished joys as well as in the giving of favors. Job said it was the Lord that took away his property and his children, and in this belief he rested and sang. We may be sure that nothing can be lost in God’s hands. When he takes our joys and treasures form us they are safe in his keeping.
“God keeps a niche In heaven to hold our idols; and albeit
He brakes them to our faces and denied
That our close kisses should impair their white,
I know we shall behold them, raised, complete,
The dust swept from their beauty”–
And that after a while he will give them back to us in a way in which we can keep them forever.
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