| The Secrets of a Beautiful Life |
Chapter 12 |
Page 6 |
Every new providence which opens before us has in its own little circle its own supply if goodness. Take, again, for illustration, the case of the young friend who was sick. She had never been ill before. When the sickness came on, the experience was altogether new and strange. At first it seemed mysterious to her, and she was alarmed; but soon she began to realize what while the experience was new and painful, she was receiving new blessings, had come upon new revealings of God’s goodness. For one thing, she had never before experienced such tenderness of love in her own home as now came to her from all her loved ones. The whole household life began to turn about her sick-room. The love was all there before in the hearts of father, mother, sister, brother, — they loved her no more than before; but in her happiness and health the love had never shown itself as it did now when she lay among the pillows, white and weak and suffering. Now each vied with all the others in the expression of kindly interest.
Then, never had she known before that she had so many friends outside her home. There had always been kindness and courtesy, but now there seemed hundred who wanted to show their love in some tender way. Still another new blessing that opened to her in her sickness was her Bible. She had always been a Bible reader, and the book has meant much to her in the bright, sunny days of life. But now she found precious love-thoughts, shining like diamonds, in words which had meant but little to her before. Nor was that all; she found revealings of the love of God which she had never experienced in her days of strength. The friendship of Christ never before had seemed so close and real as it now became. Thus the providence of God which had brought her into a darkened sick-room, had brought her also to a new unfolding of divine goodness, to which she could not have come had not the illness been experience.
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