| The Secrets of a Beautiful Life |
Chapter 6 |
Page 6 |
Sometimes that which makes life hard is in one’s own nature. Passions are strong; temper seems uncontrollable; the affections are imbittered so that meekness and gentleness appear to be impossible; or the disposition is soured so that one finds it hard to be loving and sweet. The fault may be in one’s early training, or the unhappy temper may be an inheritance. None of us come into the world saints, and ofttimes there are tendencies in one’s childhood home, or in one’s early years which give the wrong bias to the life. A few years later one awakes to find the nature misshapen, distorted, with the unlovely elements prominent and dominant.
Must one necessarily go through life to the end thus marred, with disposition spoiled, quick tempered, with appetites and passions uncontrollable? Not at all. In all these things we may be “more than conquerors through Him that loved us.” The grace of Christ can take the most unlovely life and change it into beauty. Saintliness is impossible to none, where the grace of God is allowed to work freely and thoroughly.
Many persons find in their own homes the greatest obstacle in the way of their becoming beautiful and gentle in life. Home ought to be the best place in the world in which to grow into Christlikeness. There all the influences should be inspiring and helpful. It ought to be easy to be sweet in home’s sacredness. Everything good ought there to find encouragement and stimulus. All home training should be towards “whatsoever things are lovely.” Home should be life’s best school. What the conservatory is to the little plant or flower that finds warmth, good soil, and gently culture there, growing into sweet loveliness, home should be to the young life that is born into it, and grows up within its doors. But not all home-life is ideal. Not in all homes is it easy to live sweetly and beautifully. Sometimes the atmosphere is unfriendly, cold, cheerless, chilling. It is hard to keep the heart gently and kindly in the bitterness that creeps into home-life.
But no matter how sadly a home may fail in its love and helpfulness, how much there may be in it of sharpness and bitterness, it is the mission of a Christian always to be sweet, to seek to overcome the hardness, to live victoriously. This is possible, too, through the help of Christ.
Page 6