| The Beauty of Self Control |
Chapter 20 |
Page 6 |
Were it not for the Christian’s hope, these losses of friends along the years would be infinitely sad, without alleviation. But the wonderful grace of God comes not only with its revelation of after life, but with its present healing. God binds up his people’s hearts in their sorrow and comforts them in their loneliness. The children and the friends who are gone are not lost; hand will clasp hand again and heart will clasp heart in inseparable reunion. The grave is only winter, and after winter comes spring with its wonderful resurrections, in which everything beautiful that seemed lost comes again.
“God does not give us new flowers every year
When the spring winds blow over the pleasant places,
The same dear things lift up the same fair faces:
The violet is here!
“It all comes back, the odour, grace, and hue–
Each sweet relation of its life–repeated
No blank is left, no longing for is cheated:
It is the thing we knew.
“So, after the death-winter, must it be–
God will not set strange signs in heavenly places;
The old love will look out from the old faces–
My own, I shall have thee.”
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