THE LORD OUR REFUGE
[p. 490] THE LORD OUR REFUGE
I have been intending to write to you since I heard of the great bereavement which the Lord has been pleased to allow you to suffer. Death is a terribly bitter thing. He was in it for us in a way, blessed be His name, in which we can never be; but there is no real entrance into the scope and magnitude of what is really life, except as death in some form or other has been entered into by us. From death on ourselves, like Jonah in the depth of the sea, He has delivered us; but the death of the gourd leaves the Lord Himself as our only shelter and cheer in the land of death. This accounts for His allowing the natural shelters, which we have known here and prize so much, one after one way, another after another, to be removed, and we are left alone, and yet never left alone if we accept the sympathy of the Lord; apparently less cared for, but as we walk with Him never more cared for.
The Lord grant that you may find great and effectual reparation of your great loss in Himself, and then, indeed, you will have songs in the night.
I believe it is right to have a sense of desolation here, but to be comforted and greatly compensated for your loss as you are drawn to the Lord Himself beyond the scene of death.
People of the world boast of their heroism, but the Lord wept with Mary. He groaned in His spirit and was troubled. The Lord was tenderness itself. He could say to His disciples, and He felt it, “Ye ... shall leave me alone: and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me” (John 16: 32). May you know more of this: full of feeling, but borne above the feelings by the greatness and blessedness of His own company.
I see that we all have to go through two deaths, like Jonah; one in the sea, our own death; but it is with Christ, you must pass through it in an absolute way and find that He is your life. The other death is the [p. 491] death of the gourd - everything here gone, all a desert waste and you here only for the Lord - the joy of His presence, the cheer of your heart.