| The Ministry of Comfort |
Chapter 4 |
Page 5 |
Once more, we know too that God never really takes away from us, out of our life, any gift or blessing that He bestows. The flower we love may fade, but the flower is in our heart and is ours forever. A picture is lent to you for a little while and then is removed, but while it hung on your wall and you gazed at it, it found its way into your heart, and now none can ever take it from you. Your friend walked with you a few or many days, and then vanished as to his human presence, but the threads of his life are so inextricably entangled with yours that he and you can never be really separated. What God takes away is but the form which our eyes can see. This He keeps for us for a time until it has grown into fuller beauty and until we have grown, too, into larger capacity for love and for appreciation, and then He will give it back to us.
“To give a thing and take again
Is counted meanness among men;
To take away what once is given
Cannot then be the way of heaven!
“But human hearts are crumbly stuff,
And never, never love enough,
Therefore God takes and, with a smile,
Puts our best things away awhile.
“Thereon some weep, some rave, some scorn,
Some wish they never had been born;
Some humble grow at last and still,
And then God gives them what they will.”
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