| Things to Live For |
Chapter 18 |
Page 5 |
There is a sympathy which every gentle heart feels with sorrow. We cannot pass a house with crape on the door, and not, for an instant at least, experience a subduing, quieting sentiment. But the power to enter really into sympathy with one in grief or pain comes only through a schooling of our own heart in some way. While a home is unbroken, the sorrows of other homes do not find responsive echoes in the love that dwells there. True, “love knows the secret of grief;” but even love that has not suffered cannot fully understand the heart’s pain. The mother who has never lost a child cannot deeply comfort another mother, sitting by her little one’s coffin. But when a home has been broken, its inmates have a new power of helpfulness. Crape on a neighbor’s door means more after that. Mrs. Paull never wrote any truer words than in her “Mater Dolorosa,” written after she had laid her own baby away amid the white blossoms:–
“Because of one small, low laid head all crowned
With golden hair,
Forevermore all fair young brows to me
A halo wear;
I kiss them reverently. Alas! I know
The pain I bear.
“Because of dear but close shut, holy eyes
Of heavens own blue,
All little eyes do fill my own with tears
Whate’er their hue;
And motherly I gaze their innocent,
Clear depths into.
“Because of little pallid lips, which once
My name did call,
No childish voice in vain appeal upon
My ears doth fall; I count it all my joy their joys to share
And sorrows small.
“Because of little dimpled hands
Which folded lie,
All little hands henceforth to me do have
A pleading cry;
I clasp them as they were small wandering birds
Lured home to fly.
“Because of little death cold feet, for earth’s
Rough roads unmeet,
I’d journey leagues to save from sin or harm
Such little feet, And count the lowliest service doe for them
So sacred–sweet!
Thus it is that sorrow in our own home makes all the world kin to our hearts. An emptied heart is a wonderful interpreter of other’s griefs. The power to be a true helper of others, a binder up of broken hearts, a comforter of sorrow, is the most divine of all enduements; surely, then, it is worth while to pay any price of pain or suffering to receive the diving anointing to such sacred ministry. It was in suffering that Jesus was prepared to be in the fullest sense and in the deepest measure our sympathizing Friend.
These are some of the blessings which come from the heart of God into earth’s broken families when Christ is guest there. We are sure always that there is deep, true sympathy with us in heaven when we are in grief – for was not God’s home broken too? He gave his only begotten Son that into this world’s darkened homes might come blessing and healing.
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