| Strength and Beauty |
Chapter 22 |
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Yet this is not the way God wants us to meet sorrow. There is no accident in life’s bereavements as God sees them; they are all provided for in his plan for our life. They have their place among the means of grace through which we are to be fitted for duty. There is a way to find rest and renewal in such weariness, if only those who suffer thus know how and where to find it. God’s comfort is a medicine which has power to heal the heart’s deepest wounds. There is a profound meaning in the beatitude, “Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.” It may not mean that sorrow itself is a blessing; it may not be a good thing to have the heart torn and the life bereft and darkened. Indeed, it is not a good thing in itself. Yet there is a secret in it which will extract from pain its power to do harm and will make it a blessing. The blessing is not in the sorrow, but in the comfort; and the beatitude means that God’s comfort is so full of good that it is well worth while to suffer any affliction, that one may obtain the comfort. Verily, this weariness, too, God can cure by the ministries of his love, as he cures bodily and mental weariness in sleep.
There is a weariness, also, of disappointment, in which many faint. It is very hard, for example, to be stricken down in broken health, not only in the midst of activities, but also when the heart is full of great hopes for the future. Invalidism is a heavy burden. One must sit in his room, or life on his bed, and see the throngs of busy men, among whom yesterday he himself was a leader, move on to their successes and their victories, leaving him meanwhile unable to take any part in the work or the struggle.
There is a pathetic story from crusading annals which illustrates many an experience in common life. A crusader, returning from the Holy Land, is seized by some nobles while crossing hostile territory, and is cast into prison. In his cell, one day, some months after the beginning of his captivity, he hears sounds of faraway martial music. As he listens eagerly, he knows that the music is drawing nearer. He looks out through the grating of his cell, and by and by the flash of spears is seen. Nearer and nearer still comes the column, and then, with wild emotion, the captive discovers that it is his own party, the same company of men with whom he had gone to war, with whom he had fought on sacred ground in Palestine. He cries out as the men ride close by his window, and cries more loudly, but the music drowns his voice. They ride on till all have passed, the banners moving out of sight. The last note of the receding music falls on his ear, and the poor captive is left alone in his hopelessness.
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