Do not try to escape suffering. Do not shut your heart against sorrow. It
is the bruised flower that gives out the sweetest scent. Open thy heart to
God and let him bruise it, let sorrow flow in and break it, that sweetness
may flow out. When the poet sang:
"I no trouble and no sorrow
See today, nor will I borrow
Gloomy visions for the morrow,"
he sang not of sorrow for souls lost in sin, nor of needful heaviness
through manifold temptations, nor of sorrow awakened by the suffering of
others, but of that sorrow which arises from the world through distrust
and separation from God.
There is a sorrow which comes through Christ. It is as the refiner's fire,
purifying the soul and binding it closer to God. Such sorrow detaches the
heart from the world and from self, and hides it in God. It is impossible
for the soul to approach any degree of nearness to Christ only through
sorrow and suffering. In my own experience my heart once longed for deeper
grace. My whole soul breathed out, "O Jesus! give me more meekness." For a
few days a heavy cloud of sorrow lay upon me; when it had passed away, I
had an answer to my prayer.
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