| Things to Live For |
Chapter 23 |
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Here is a little story from an English magazine that fits in as illustration. A poor woman in the hospital was told by the matron that she could not recover, that her complaint was incurable. It is very hard to be told this, – that one never can hope to be better, that one’s life work is done. However, this poor sufferer was not overcome by what the kindly matron told her. She did not shrink form pain and death. But there was still one point at which she could not yield to God’s way. With tears she said that she gladly and patiently accepted God’s will so far as her own pain and death were concerned, but she could not bear the thought of leaving her children alone. She declared that no one could induce her to feel resigned on this matter.
The visitor to whom she said this had no words with which to chide her. She could only say to the poor woman, “Yours is untold sorrow, far beyond my understanding, but God knows all about it; God understands. Will you not tell him just how you feel? Tell him what you have told me, all your pain, your anxiety about your little children, your sore dread at thought of leaving them alone in this world.” Then the visitor went away, promising to pray for the poor woman in her sore struggle. In a day or two she came again, and found the sufferer calm and patient. She had told God – had poured out her whole heart in unrestrained prayer, and she said to her friend, “I am just leaving everything with God; not only whether I shall live or die, but each one of my little children, if I am to be taken from them. Everything is safe with him. I fee it now; I know it.”
She had acknowledged God in this hard way, as in all other and easier ways. She had acknowledged him, too, by telling him all about her trouble, by going over her anxieties with him, and now there was no trouble, no anxiety, any longer. There was now no “anything but this” in her submission. To the Master’s words: “In all thy ways,” she could now respond, “Yes, Lord, in all my ways.”
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