Chapter 23 Sorrow in Christian
Homes Sooner or later sorrow comes to every home. No conditions
of wealth or culture or social standing or even of religion
can exclude it. When two young people come from
the marriage altar and set up their new home, it seems to them
that its joy never can be disturbed, that grief can never reach their
hearts in that charmed spot. For a few years, perhaps, their
fond dream remains unbroken. The flowers bloom into still
softer beauty and richer fragrance. The music continues, blight and
joyous, with no minor chords. The circle is unbroken. Children
grow up in the tender atmosphere, blessing the home with their
love and lovableness. The household life flows on softly
and smoothly like a river, gathering in breadth and depth as it flows. In other homes, all about, there
are sorrows, bereavements, but amid these desolations of the
dreams of other households, this one remains untouched, like an
oasis in the desert. But not forever does the exemption
continue. There comes a day when the strange
messenger of sorrow Stands at the door, nor waits for bidding
and welcome, But enters and lays his withering hand On some sweet
flower. The first experience of grief
is very sore. Its suddenness and strangeness
add to its terribleness. What seemed so impossible yesterday
has become a fearful reality to-day. The dear one, whom we
held so securely as we thought that we could never lose her,
is now gone, and no more answers to our call. It seems to us that
we never can be comforted, that we can never enjoy life again,
since the One who made for us so much of the gladness of life
has been taken away. The time of the first sorrow
is to every life a most critical point, a time of great danger. The way is new and untried, one
over which the feet have never passed before. At no other point,
therefore, is wise and loving guidance more needed. Many lives
are wrecked on the hidden reefs and the low, dangerous rocks
which skirt the shores of sorrow's sea. Many people find in grief
an enemy only, to whom they refuse to be reconciled, and with whom
they contend in fierce strife, receiving only injury and harm
to themselves in the unavailing conflict. that it always makes
purer and holier and better. An impression prevails that sorrow
is in itself a blessing in its influence, that it always makes
purer and holier and better the lives that it touches. But this
is not true. Sorrow has in itself no purifying
efficacy, as some suppose, by which it removes from sinful
lives their blemishes and stains. The same fire which refines the
gold destroys the flowers. Sorrow is a fire which in God's
hand is designed to purify the lives of His people, but which,
unblessed, produces only desolation. It depends on the relation of
the sufferer to Christ as a friend or enemy, and on the reception
given to grief, whether it leaves good or ill where it enters. In a Christian home, Where the
love of Christ dwells and holds sway, sorrow should always leave
a benediction. It should be received as God's
own messenger, and we should welcome it and listen for the
divine message which it bears. For God's angels do not always
come to us as we are apt to imagine them coming, in radiant dress,
with smiling face and gentle voice. Thus artists paint them
thus in their pictures. Thus we imagine them in their
ministries. We think of them as possessing
rare and wondrous loveliness, and so no doubt they do as they
appear before God and serve in His presence. There is no unloveliness
in any angel face in heaven. No angel has features of sternness. But, as these celestial messengers
come to earth on their ministries, they appear oft times in forms
which appall and fill the trembling heart with terror and alarm.
Yet oft times it is when they come in these very forms that
they bring their sweet messages and their best blessings. All
God's angels come to us disguised, Sorrow and sickness, poverty
and death, One after other lift their frowning masks, And we
behold the seraph's face beneath, All radiant with the glory and
the calm of having looked upon the face of God. Wherever God's
messenger of sorrow is thus received in a Christian home, with welcome
even amid tears and pain, it will leave a blessing of peace,
and will make the home sweeter, tenderer, heavenlier. We speak
of love as the atmosphere in which the home reaches its best
development in the direction of happiness, as in summer warmth
the flowers unfold their rarest beauty and sweetest fragrance. But really no home ever attains
its highest blessedness and joy, and its fullest richness of life,
until in some way sorrow enters its door. Even the home-love,
like certain autumn fruits, does not ripen into its sweetest tenderness
until the frost of trial has touched it. When a green log
of wood is laid on the hearth on a winter evening, and the
fire begins to play about the log, a strange plaintive music
comes from the wood. A poet would tell you that while
the tree stood in the forest, the birds sat amid its branches
and sang there, and that the notes of their songs hid away
in the tree. Then he would tell you that the
music you now hear from the log as it burns is this bird minstrelsy,
which has remained imprisoned in the wood until brought out
by the hot flames. The poet's thought is only imaginary,
but it well illustrates a truth concerning the life of a Christian
home which is worth pondering and remembering. In the sunny
days of joy, the bird notes of gladness are sung all about us,
and sink away into our hearts and hide there. The lessons,
the influences, the tender impressions, the peace, the beautiful things
of quiet, happy, prosperous years fall upon our lives, as the sunbeams
and rain showers fall upon the fields and the long autumn and
winter and early spring, and seem to be lost. There appears
but little to show for so much absorption of brightness and
blessing. Our lives do not appear to yield
the measure of joy they should yield. Then the flames of trial
are kindled, and in the heat of the suffering the long-gathering
and long-slumbering music is set free and flows out. Many of the world's best things
have been born of affliction. The sweetest songs ever sung
on earth have been called out by suffering. The richest blessings
that we enjoy have come to us out of the fire. The good things
we inherit from the past are the purchase of suffering and
sacrifice. Our redemption comes from Gethsemane
and Calvary. We get heaven through Christ's
tears and blood. Whatever is richest and most
valuable in life anywhere has been in the fire. Our love for
one another may be strong and true in the sunny days, but it
never reaches its holiest and fullest expression until pain
has touched our hearts and called out the hidden treasures of affliction. Even the love of a mother for
her child, deep and pure as it is, never reaches its full wondrousness
of devotion and sacrifice until the child suffers, and the mother
bends over it in yearning and solicitude. The same is true
of all the home loves. The best and divinest qualities
in them come out only in the fires. The household which has
endured sorrow in the true spirit of love and faith emerges from
it undestroyed, untarnished, and with purer, tenderer affections,
with less animosity of selfishness and earthliness. When husband
and wife stand together beside their dead child, they're drawn
to each other as never before. Their common grief is purifying. Children which remain are dearer
to parents after one has been taken. Brothers and sisters grow
more thoughtful and patient in their mutual fellowship when
the home circle has been broken. There is, in an empty chair in
a Christian home, a wondrous power to soften the animosities
of each and refine all the affections and feelings. The cloud of grief
which hangs over a household, like the summer cloud above the
fields and gardens, leaves wondrous blessings. Is it raining, little
flower? Be glad of rain. Too much sun
would wither you, Twill shine again. The sky is very black,
tis true, But just behind it shines blue. Are you weary, tender
heart? Be glad of pain. In sorrow sweetest
things will grow As flowers in rain. God watches, and you will
have sun when clouds, their perfect work, have done. But how may
we make sure of the benedictions which sorrow brings? Even the
gospel is the savor of death to those who reject it. And sorrow,
though it may be God's evangel, oft times comes and goes away
again, leaving no heavenly gift. How must we treat this dark-robed
messenger if we would receive the heavenly blessings it bears
in its hands? We must welcome it, even in our
trembling and tears, as sent from God. We must believe that
it comes from our Father and that, coming from Him, it is
a messenger of love to us, bearing a true blessing to us, though
it is a loss or a pain. We must ask for the message which
God has sent us in the affliction, and listen to it as we would
to a message of gladness. It has some mission to us, or
some gift from heaven. Some golden fruit lies hidden
in the rough husk. Some bit of gold in us God designs
to be set free from its dross by this fire. There is some radiant
height beyond this dark valley to which He wants to lead us.
Christ Himself accepted and endured with loving submission the bitter
sorrow of His cross, because He saw the joy set before Him
which waited beyond the sorrow. In the same way we should accept
our griefs, because they are but the shaded gateways to peace
and blessedness. If we cannot get through the
gateways, we cannot get the radiant joys which wait beyond the sorrow. Not to be able to take from our
Father's hand the seed of pain is to miss the fruits of blessing
which can grow from no other sowing. If we are wise, we will
give sorrow as cordial a welcome as joy, for it is from the same
loving hand, and brings gifts as good and as golden. We must remember that it is in
the home where Christ Himself dwells that sorrow unlocks its
heavenly treasures. A Christless home receives none
of them. Those who shut their doors on
Christ shut out all blessedness, and when the lamps of earthly
joy go out, are left in utter darkness. A wise forethought
will make sure of the hopes and comforts of a personal interest
in Christ, and of having him as a guest in the sunny days,
that, when the shadow of night falls, the stars of bright hope
may shine out.