| Things to Live For |
Chapter 24 |
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There is comfort in this for those whose life seems a failure here. There are many such lives. They have been crushed and torn by sorrow, defeated in life’s struggles. They have toiled hard, but misfortune has followed them in everything they have attempted. There will be time enough in the eternal years for such lives to grow into full and perfect beauty.
There are lives which are cut off before any of their powers are developed. A thousand fond hopes gather about them a – all a mother’s dreams for her child. Suddenly they are stricken down in infancy or early youth. The bud had not time to open in the short summer. It is lifted away, still folding up in its close shut calyxes all its possibilities of loveliness, power, and life. Sorrow grieves over the hopes which seem blighted, and cuts on the marble shaft or block some symbol of incompleteness. Yet when we believe in immortality, what matters is that the bud did not open and unfold its beauties this side the grave? There will be time enough in immortality for every such life to put forth all its loveliness.
An Easter lily was sent in having on its stem several unopened buds. In a day or two these buds had unfolded, and poured their fragrance upon the air. So will it be with the lives of children and youth who pass from earth to heaven; they will open out I the heavenly warmth until every possibility of their being has reached its best.
There are some good people who lose hope in this world’s disheartenments. Their souls are graves full of buried things. Down into these dark sepulchers have gone early dreams, visions of beauty, sweet thoughts, noble intentions, sacred feeling, and brilliant expectations. They bow in sadness over their dead, saying, “There is no use in my going on. Life is empty for me now. There is nothing left worth living for. Every sweet flower has faded.” Christian faith should dispel any such feeling. Into the grave of Jesus went one evening the sweetest hopes, the holiest loves, the gentlest thoughts, the brightest visions, the fondest dreams of a little company of loyal friends. At that grave, as the sun sank low weeping ones stood, saying, “All our hearts’ hopes lie buried here – all our joy, all our love.” But three days later that grave was opened, and those buried hopes, joys, and affections were raised up, and lived again in blessed beauty. What the friends of Jesus thought they had lost forever they had not lost at all. Their hearts’ treasures were only buried that they might spring up in immortal beauty. The dull seeds became glorious Easter lilies.
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