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by L B Cowman
Trained to Comfort
June 24
"Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God" (Isa. 40:1).
Store up comfort. This was the prophet's mission. The world is full of
comfortless hearts, and ere thou art sufficient for this lofty ministry, thou
must be trained. And thy training is costly in the extreme; for, to render it
perfect, thou too must pass through the same afflictions as are wringing
countless hearts of tears and blood. Thus thy own life becomes the hospital ward
where thou art taught the Divine art of comfort. Thou art wounded, that in the
binding up of thy wounds by the Great Physician, thou mayest learn how to render
first aid to the wounded everywhere. Dost thou wonder why thou art passing
through some special sorrow? Wait till ten years are passed, and thou wilt find
many others afflicted as thou art. Thou wilt tell them how thou hast suffered
and hast been comforted; then as the tale is unfolded, and the anodynes applied
which once thy God wrapped around thee, in the eager look and the gleam of hope
that shall chase the shadow of despair across the soul, thou shalt know why thou
wast afflicted, and bless God for the discipline that stored thy life with such
a fund of experience and helpfulness. --Selected
***
God does not comfort us to make us comfortable, but to make us comforters. --Dr.
Jowett
***
"They tell me I must bruise
"They tell me I must break
"They tell me love must bleed,
"Must it be always so
"Ah, yes! by crushing days,
The rose's leaf,
Ere I can keep and use
Its fragrance brief.
The skylark's heart,
Ere her cage song will make
The silence start.
And friendship weep,
Ere in my deepest need
I touch that deep.
With precious things?
Must they be bruised and go
With beaten wings?
By caging nights, by scar
Of thorn and stony ways,
These blessings are!"
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