| Things to Live For |
Chapter 24 |
Page 6 |
This is a parable. Though we may not grasp and hold the very things we strive to reach, there is a blessing in the seeking which itself more than meets the cost; and besides, we get the substance of our quest, though the form eludes us. The holy visions which seem to vanish as we pursue them really hide in the depth of our heart, and stay there to brighten and enrich our life forever. So it is with all the precious things we cherish for a time and then seem to lose. If they are pure, true, and worthy things, we have not lost them; we never can lose them. Abraham never got the Promised Land, though he left all to seek it. To the end of his life he journeyed on in his quest, but died a pilgrim still on the way. Yet in his heart he found better things than he sought, not a country, but the rewards of faith and obedience. There always are good people who pursue hopes and dreams which they never overtake; yet in their souls they find in their quest holier hopes and fairer dreams than those which they miss. Those who seem to fail ofttimes get most out of this world which they can carry to heaven with them.
The same is true of the joys and blessings which we seem to lose out of our hands in life’s vicissitudes. We do not lose them. The material forms of things may drop from our clasp, but the spiritual quality or beauty in them we never can lose. We cannot lose a friend. The mother never can lose her child. A woman of ninety said that her first baby, which had died when she was but a little past twenty, had stayed as a vision of beauty in her heart all the seventy years. We never can lose a mother. Her life is wrought too inextricably with ours ever to be taken out. A pure and tender joy once cherished never can be lost out of our heart. We may feel its thrill no more; that which gave it may have passed out of our life; but a holy joy, once experienced, becomes part of our being, and never can be taken from us.
If the Angelus were lent to you for a few days, and hung in your parlor, and then were removed, you would really have the picture forever. During these few days of possession it would enter into you r soul, and though you should never see it again, you never could lose it. So it is that beautiful things, holy affections, gentle friendships, tender joys, sweet fancies, precious hopes, radiant dreams, once ours, though only for a little while, are ours forever. The forms may vanish, but the spirit remains.
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