| The Joy of Service |
Chapter 12 |
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Another experience which brings perplexity and dismay to many good people is sorrow. A minister has just been telling of his sore bereavement. He had been married for eleven years, and has two beautiful children. His wife was a woman of rare strength of character and firmness of spirit. She brought great joy and good into his life, and seemed to be altogether indispensable to his happiness. The other day, when he was absent in a distant city, his wife suddenly became ill with pneumonia. He was summoned by telegraph, but before he could reach her side she had passed away.
What is the Christian word for this good man in his grief? God does not blame him for his tears; – the Divine comfort does not deaden the affections so that we do not feel the pangs of bereavement. Indeed, the love of God only makes the human heart the more tender, and human affection the sweeter and richer, so that the pang of bereavement is even keener in the Christian than in the worldly man. God does not promise to keep us from tears. “Jesus wept.” But the teaching of the Bible is that our sorrow shall not be bitter or insubmissive, but shall be chastened by reverent love, its darkness struck through with the light of peace. God’s comfort is strength – strength to endure.
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