THE HEART WEANED FROM EARTH NO. 1
THE HEART WEANED FROM EARTH NO. 1
I wish I could say a word which would help and comfort you in this hour of sorrow. When I recall your very bright beginning, I am truly encouraged that the Lord keeps it in remembrance. See Jeremiah 2: 2. Surely He would now draw your heart more to Himself. We learn from Hebrews that the effectual way to detach the heart from this place is, not the sorrow we find here, but the sympathy which the Lord vouchsafes to us in the sorrow, so that your heart is drawn away from the sorrow because of the solace you find in the company of Christ, who is not here. The sorrow leads us to turn to Him, and we cannot reach Him but at the other side of death; but when we are in company with Him we are borne above our sorrows. He is so much to us that we are more occupied with our gain in Him than with our loss here; and thus we become weaned from this place because He who is not here is our only solace in our weaknesses here. May you, in a very full way, know this solace, and thus be much blessed.
NO. 2 As I know that nothing can console you in this the hour of your deepest sorrow but the sympathy of Christ, my one desire for you is that you may know it. When through His work you are free from all distance between Him and you, you are His companion, and He is so interested [p. 246] in you that He comes near to you in your deepest pressure, where no one else could come He, as High Priest, Jesus the Son of God, has passed through the heavens, and He sympathises with you. He uses the terrible blank, the Mount Moriah to your heart, as an opportunity of making known to you the depth of His interest in you, and if your heart is conscious of His nearness, you will be not only borne above your sorrow, but He will be endeared to you beyond all you have known before, and in a way never to be forgotten, so that it is not your great irreparable loss that will be before you, but the unspeakable solace you have found in Christ Himself....
As for myself, I must ever remember how ready the beloved absent one was to serve me; and, above all, the great service which he rendered to many through the readings at his house — a time never to be forgotten.