| The Ministry of Comfort |
Chapter 3 |
Page 8 |
It is well that all who are called to suffer should get a clear and definite conception of the meaning of trouble, that they may know how to meet it. Since it comes always bearing some gift of love, some blessing from God, we should receive it as God’s messenger, with reverence, with a welcome in our heart, though it bring pain or grief, and should be ready to take from it whatever benefit it brings. The reason many persons find so little comfort in their troubles is because they do not accept them as sent from God, nor expect to receive blessing from them. They think only of getting through them in the best way they can, and then of getting over them at length, as nature’s slow processes bring healing.
But there is a better way. God’s comfort can keep the heart sweet and unhurt in the midst of the sorest trials, and bring the life through the darkest hours, shining in transfigured beauty. A genial author writes: “Strangely do some people talk of getting over a great sorrow – overleaping it, passing it by, thrusting it into oblivion. Not so. No one ever does that, at least no nature which can be touched by the feeling of grief at all. The only was is to pass through the ocean of affliction solemnly, slowly, with humility and faith, as the Israelites passed through the sea. Then its very waves of misery will divide and become to us a wall on the right side and on the left, until the gulf narrows and narrows before our eyes, and we land safe on the opposite shore.”
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