Reader, is this your sad condition? Have you lost a child?
Whether son or daughter, infant or of riper years, it is much the same in any
case, a portion of yourself is gone. How sharp the visitation! How short its
work! The grave has opened and has closed again; yet closed it not before it
received its tenant until in its yawning space you had committed "dust to
dust, ashes to ashes, earth to earth." How shrank your soul within you, as you
heard those moving words, that grating sound upon the casket! And as you
hastened home, enrapt in your tenderness, the thoughts of other children left to
you (if indeed you have them), healed not the smart, nor seemed to make amends
for your lost treasure. Oh, what a fearful wrench it must have been, to
tear that branch from out its parent stem, never to grow and flourish there
again! Oceans of tears shed over that silent grave would not avail to bring your
loved one back to you. Long might you kneel on that cold ground, and yet, nor
verdant sod, nor marble tomb, nor modest headstone, could listen to your sobbing
tale.
Think not, my friend, I blame you for your tears; neither does God reprove you. He knows that you must feel the wound inflicted on your sorrowing heart. He knows your frame, remembers you are dust, and bids you seek Him in your tears, inviting you to tell your sorrows freely into His waiting ear. Believe me, this is the only remedy. Must the grave be visited unceasingly, and sorrow nursed until it becomes a morbid ailment a wound unsoftened with ointment, a standing sore; and all, because you sorrow to yourself, and not to Jesus?
Think not, my friend, I blame you for your tears; neither does God reprove you. He knows that you must feel the wound inflicted on your sorrowing heart. He knows your frame, remembers you are dust, and bids you seek Him in your tears, inviting you to tell your sorrows freely into His waiting ear. Believe me, this is the only remedy. Must the grave be visited unceasingly, and sorrow nursed until it becomes a morbid ailment a wound unsoftened with ointment, a standing sore; and all, because you sorrow to yourself, and not to Jesus?
Poor mourner, no! This is not the path to consolation, nor yet
to rightly exercised distress. Do you ask, "What would you have me do?" See
Love in it my friend! Is it not written, "God Is Love?" (1 John 4:8, 16).
It was God who did it! It was God who took your child. Shall we say that God is
love, in all but this?
Have we found an end to His perfections, a limit to His love? Are there, then, exceptions to His perfect rule? No, God is love. Has He required of you what He Himself was not prepared to do? Has He not set you the example? Did God withhold His Son, His Only Son, for you and your salvation? Then say, could you withhold your child, when thus it pleased Him to ask you for what He only lent you for a season?
Have we found an end to His perfections, a limit to His love? Are there, then, exceptions to His perfect rule? No, God is love. Has He required of you what He Himself was not prepared to do? Has He not set you the example? Did God withhold His Son, His Only Son, for you and your salvation? Then say, could you withhold your child, when thus it pleased Him to ask you for what He only lent you for a season?
[George Mylne]
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Psalm 103:14 ... For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust.
Isaiah 40:7-8 ... The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: because the spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it: surely the people is grass. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever.
1 Peter 5:6-7 ... Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time: Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.❤
