BEREAVEMENT

^[p. 297] BEREAVEMENT

I am sure it is not easy for you to catch the light of the morning, in the darkness that the death or removal of one so dear and near has plunged you.

Faith asserts what facts deny at the time; but it is a great thing to insist on the word of God to one’s soul, when nothing around corroborates, but on the contrary tends to contradict it.

When the sun is eclipsed at noonday, one ordinarily waits in patience, assured that it will return. True, the blank that you have sustained can never be repaired; yet you may say now in the depth of your sorrow, ‘His ways are perfect’. Perhaps you cannot see them perfect yet, but faith in His word says that they are perfect; and faith will lead you soon into divine reality; and then, like Abraham on mount Moriah, you will find Jehovah-jireh - “In the mount of the Lord it shall be seen” (Genesis 22: 14). How his sad night ended in the brightest day! “The end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy” (James 5: 11). May He comfort you, and thus prove Himself to be the resource of your heart.

It is extremely interesting to me how He satisfies our hearts, not now by things, as in the garden of Eden, but by Himself. He makes Himself known to the heart as the One nearest, and dearest, and most devoted to us, ‘Whose love is as great as His power, and knows neither measure nor end’.