Verily, verily, I say unto you, That ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice: and ye shall he sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy.
—John 16:20
5841 Why Me—Why Them
Tragedy struck opera singer Beverly Sills when her first child was born almost totally deaf. This little child would never hear the beautiful voice of her mother or the lovely sounds of a soft forest. Shortly after discovering the deafness, Mrs. Sills gave birth to a second child, only to find that this son was mentally retarded.
So great was the sorrow of her life that she took off a full year from her profession to work with her daughter and son, trying to come to terms with the double tragedy.
Later, when asked how she learned to cope, the famed songstress said, “The first question you ask is, Why me? Then it changes to Why them? It makes a complete difference in your attitude.”
—C. R. Hembree
5842 Some Agonized Productions
It was not until Beethoven had become so deaf he could not hear the fortissimo of a full orchestra that he composed his chief oratorio. It was not until John Milton had become stone-blind that he could dictate the most sublime poem of the ages. It was not until Walter Scott was kicked by a horse and confined to the house for many days that he could write the “Lay of the Last Minstrel.” The painter who mixes his colors with blood from his own broken heart makes the best pictures. The mightiest men of all ages have been mightiest in their agonies.
—Talmage
5843 “Comfort Ye”
Possibly no Bible chapter has exerted a greater influence on the world’s leaders than Isaiah 40. Handel begins his Messiah with “Comfort ye”; Luther pored over it in the castle at Salzburg; John Brown read it in prison at Harper’s Ferry; Oliver Cromwell went to it for help in time of storm; Daniel Webster read it again and again when he was crushed and broken in spirit; Tennyson called it one of the five great classics in the Old Testament record.
—J. H. Bomberger
5844 Mender Of Broken Hearts
Max I. Reich tells of passing a repairing shop in the window of which was a sign reading: “We mend everything except broken hearts.” Brother Reich stepped back and entered the store, and when a beautiful young Jewess came forward to serve him he said: “I saw your sign, and want to ask what you do with people who have broken hearts.” “Oh!” she said, “We send them to the hospital.”
“You are a Jewess, are you not? Did you ever read Isaiah 57:15? “For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.” And,” continued Mr. Reich, “there was also He who read Isaiah 61:1, in his hometown synagogue at Nazareth. The verse contains the words “He hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted.” And,” said Mr. Reich, “the Messiah added, “This day is the Scripture fulfilled in your eyes.””
5845 The Picture When Inverted
The famous Thomas Nast, in a public exhibition of his skill, once performed a strange feat with his brushes. Taking a canvas about six-feet long by two-feet wide, he placed it nearly horizontal upon an easel before his audience, and began to sketch rapidly a landscape. In quick succession appeared green meadows with cattle, fields of grain, the farmhouse and surrounding buildings, with orchard near; while, over all, the bright sky, with fleecy clouds, seemed to pour Heaven’s benediction upon the scene below. At length no finishing touch was necessary. Still the artist held his brush, as he stepped aside to receive the hearty plaudits of the admiring audience.
When the applause had subsided, Mr. Nast stepped back to the canvas, as if he had not quite completed the picture. Taking darker colors, he applied them most recklessly to the canvas. Out went the bright sky. “Did you ever see a picture like this?” he asked, as he blotted out the meadows, fields, orchards, and buildings. Up, down and across passed the artist’s hand, until the landscape was totally obliterated, and nothing but a daub, such as a child might make, remained. Then, with a more satisfied look, he stepped aside, laying down his brush as if to say. “It is finished.”
But no applause came from the perplexed audience, and Nast then ordered the stage attendants to place a gilded frame around the ruined work of art, and to turn it to a vertical position. The mystery was revealed, for before the audience stood a panel picture of a beautiful waterfall, the water plunging over a precipice of dark rock, skirted with trees and verdue. It is needless to say that the audience burst into rounds of applause.
—Ludlow
5846 Beauty From Accidents
Turner used to get ideas for pictures in curious ways. At one time he outlined a sketch on the canvas, and then gave three children a saucer of water-colours in red, blue, and yellow, and told them to dabble on the canvas as much as they pleased.
Of course they were delighted with such permission, but in the midst of their play Turner suddenly called out, “Stop!” He then took the drawing in his own hands, and from the accidental colouring of the children made a beautiful landscape.
—Christian Chronicle
5847 The Sorrowful Tree
A singular shrub, called “the sorrowful tree,” grows on an island near the city of Bombay, in India. At sunset no flowers are to be seen, but half-an-hour later the tree is full of blossoms. These yield a sweet odor, but when the sun begins to shine on them they either fall off or close up; and thus it continues flowering in the night during the whole year.
—Pulpit Treasury
5848 The Piano Lady Next Door
When I was a very young boy, a dear neighbor who lived two doors down the street experienced a great sorrow. She often played and sang at her piano, but after this tragedy struck in her life, the first song with which she would open her “daily concert” was the lovely hymn, “I Must Tell Jesus.” The words made a deep impression upon me as a child.
—H. G. Bosch
5849 They Went And Told Jesus
Few of us are so isolated that we can live without ever having some of our friends involved in tragic accidents. In our modern society there are many ways in which our loved-ones may face death. When tragedy does strike, what should we as God’s children do?
I was helped recently through meditating upon a verse from Matthew 14. The story concerns the execution of John the Baptist by order of Herod the king. How did John’s disciples and friends react to the death of their leader? Verse 12 simply states: “And his disciples came, and took up the body, and buried it, and went and told Jesus.”
When tragedy struck, they told Jesus all about it.
Some may feel that such a reaction is too simple, and that offering it as an example is too simplistic. But work it out in terms of what we now know about the Lord Jesus.
We must tell Jesus because He understands the entire circumstances involving our loved one or friend. The stark fact about ourselves is that we do not know. We simply cannot understand why a father is cut down in the prime of life, or why a mother is taken from her home. We do not know why that promising young man or young woman is smashed to death in some automobile accident. But Jesus understands. He is Lord of life and death.
We must tell Jesus because He sympathizes. Others may offer us consolation, and it is a Christian ministry to do so; but when all have left us and we are alone, it is to the Lord Jesus that we must turn for abiding sympathy and consolation. John’s disciples told Jesus about John’s death because they knew Jesus loved John and would offer them words of sympathy.
We must tell Jesus because He strengthens. I was recently in a church where a little Christian lad went Home to be with Jesus after almost a year of suffering. I was deeply impressed by the way in which all involved—his parents, his pastor, his friends—were strengthened by the Lord to face the trial. Their secret lay in this: they had told Jesus about it.
“Have we trials and temptations?
Is there trouble anywhere?
We should never be discouraged,
Take it to the Lord in Prayer.”
—Selected
5850 He Knows
An anonymous author has expressed it this way:
“He knows the bitter, weary way;
He knows the endless striving day by day;
He knows how hard the fight has been;
The clouds that come our lives between,
The wounds the world hath never seen,
He knows.
He knows! O thought so full of bliss!
For though our joys on earth we miss,
We still can bear it, feeling this,
HE KNOWS!”
5851 Spurgeon’s Awful Moments
Spurgeon once tells of how he was utterly depressed in spirit and soul, discouraged, and failing in health. Just before leaving for a recuperation, he preached on “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” The experience was so sad that he wished it would never happen again.
Afterwards, a man come to see him. Spurgeon described him later as “one step away from the insane asylum,” his head bulging, his hands nervous and his spirit totally depressed. The man told Spurgeon that after hearing his sermon, he felt that Spurgeon was the only one who could understand him and so he had come. Spurgeon comforted him as best he knew how from his own sad experience.
For five years, Spurgeon did not see the man. But “just last night” (he was delivering the above lecture to students at the College), “I saw him: it was like night and day. He was completely changed.” Spurgeon concluded that he was willing to undergo hundreds of such experiences now that he knew God permitted it to happen so that he could know and sympathize with people under similar predicament.
5852 Truett Becomes God’s Man
No preacher in America has moved his generation more deeply than Dr. George W. Truett of Dallas, Texas. His simple eloquence mightily moved great congregations.
Few, indeed, knew the personal tragedy in his life that led him into deeper consecration and became the secret of his power, The story is told in his biography by his son-in-law, Dr. Powhatan W. James.
As a younger man Dr. Truett went out hunting on one occasion with some friends. Truett’s shotgun discharged accidentally and wounded his closest friend, a Chief of Police. While the wounded man lingered between life and death, young Truett, together with his whole congregation, interceded for the life of the friend who had been shot. Nevertheless, soon after, Truett saw his friend die.
All that night and for days to come the young pastor wrestled with God in prayer. No light came. He told his wife that never again could he go into the pulpit to preach. He told her that his ministry was ended. He spend long hours with his Bible and repeatedly uttered these words, “My times are in Thy hands.”
Late Saturday night he fell asleep. Just before daybreak Sunday morning there came to him a vision which inspired him to go back into his pulpit to pray and to preach with a fervor and conviction never known before. In his vision he seemed to see Jesus as vividly near as an earthly friend at his side, seemed to hear the Master say to him, “Have no fear. You are My man from now on.”
So vivid was the vision that he awakened his wife immediately and told her. He slept again and the vision was repeated. When he went back to sleep the second time, the vision was repeated for the third time. Something revolutionary happened in the soul of George Truett. “You are My man from now on,” said Jesus. All who heard Truett speak thereafter went away under the conviction of the Holy Spirit whispering, “Truett is surely God’s man.”
—Benjamin P. Browne
5853 Broken Heart At Founder’s Week
I was scheduled to speak at the Chicago Moody Founder’s Week Conference in early February of 1960. During the latter part of the preceding December, I received a letter from Dr. William Culbertson, President of Moody Bible Institute, in which he made a statement to this effect, “Brethren, we must come to Founder’s Week with broken hearts if the world is to receive blessing through us.” That was an unusual letter from the conference director. It gripped me. I paused then and there at my desk and prayed, “O God, I cannot answer for the other speakers who come to Founder’s Week. But I am responsible for the state of my own heart. Lord, I ask you now, whatever the cost may be, to send me to Moody’s Founder’s Week with a broken heart.”
Little did I realize what these brief prayers would cost me and how God was going to answer them.
During January, I was scheduled to minister in conferences in the West Indies. About five one afternoon I was contacted by overseas telephone and given the message, “Your wife died of a heart attack at 1:00 P. M.” She was to have met me the following Monday in Chicago where we had planned to be at Founder’s Week together.
It was a difficult struggle for me, but falling to my knees beside my bed I said, “Lord, I will go. You give me the grace and I will speak at Founder’s Week as planned. You have answered my own prayers in a way I never anticipated or thought, but I will accept” your answer.
To stand before that huge audience at Founder’s Week two days after we had buried my sweet Christian wife was the first step in the victory over what otherwise might have been a crushing defeat.
—G. Christian Weiss
5854 No House Without Sorrow
Among the parables that Chinese teachers use is the story of a woman who lost an only son. She was grief-stricken out of all reason. She made her sorrow a wailing wall. Finally she went to a wise old philosopher. He said to her, “I will give you back your son if you will bring me some mustard seed. However, the seed must come from a home where there has never been any sorrow.” Eagerly she started her search, and went from house to house. In every case she learned that a loved one had been lost. “How selfish I have been in my grief,” she said, “sorrow is common to all.”
—How to Face Life
5855 To Break Singer’s Heart
It is said of Jenny Lind that when Goldschmidt first heard her sing, somebody said, as he walked out of the opera house, “Goldschmidt, how did you like her singing?” He said: “Well, there was a harshness about that voice that needs toning down. If I could marry that woman, break her heart and crush her feelings, then she could sing.”
And it is said that afterwards he did marry her and broke her heart and crushed her feelings. Jenny Lind sang with the sweetest voice ever listened to; so sweet that the angels of God would almost rush to the parapets of heaven to catch the strains.
—J. Wilbur Chapman
See also: Persecution ; Suffering ; Tears ; Troubles ; Luke 21:16; John 16:22.