June 10

Enriched by pain

“Yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered” (Heb. 5:8).
“For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ” (2 Cor. 1:5).

One who had suffered a great deal through illness wrote to a friend:
“I can hardly say I am sorry for you, dear friend, although you tell me of suffering and trial, and although I feel very much for you in it; because I am so sure the Master is leading you by the right way, and only means it to issue in all the more blessing. What mistakes we should make if we had the choosing, and marked out nice smooth paths for our friends! It has struck me, too, very much lately, that the Lord’s most used and blessed workers are almost always weighted in some way or other. I don’t know one who, to our limited view, is not working under weights and hindrances of some sort, contrasting with mere professors who seem so much more favorably placed for what they don’t do.

“I am so very glad that He did not answer prayer for my recovery all those eight months of illness; why I should have missed all sorts of blessing and precious teaching if He had!”
—Frances Ridley Havergal.

Praise to God! He often crosses
Plans and schemes poor self has form’d,
And for reckon’d gains have losses
Sprung where God’s dark purpose storm’d;
But I bless Him that His thunder
Spake His grace into my soul,
And my heart melts at the wonder
God has brought good from the whole.

Gourds have perish’d, but I would not
Like impatient Jonah be;
God is God, and oh, I could not
Trace my road so well as He!
Darkest hour before the dawning,
Shadows thickest just before,
Lifting, show they’re but the awning
Drawn around our Father’s door.

Bless His Name! He ever mindeth
His Blood-Covenant with me;
And the soul that trusts Him findeth
Good in all life’s mysteries.
—J. Robertson & R. F. Beveridge.

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