Affliction a Comfort

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 9, 1871

Affliction a Comfort.

“Is IT not quite too much to believe that any one ever considered afflict-ing?”

Well, dear reader, it is not necessary for me to speak for others. I will only honestly state to you that there have been times, in my own experience, when the sorrows and the sufferings which I was enduring were in one sense at least, comforts.

You will say, “Oh, yes! in their results!” I reply, They were comforts at the time when I felt them. You, my unbelieving friend, tell me that you “cannot conceive it possible that a grief should be anything but a grief, or a pain anything but a pain.”

Can you understand me when I say that my trials are as the presence of God to my soul? I have had trouble speak to my heart as with the voice for which I was longing! When I thought God had almost forgotten me; forgotten to send me the shower of grace I so needed in the garden of my soul, then it came, though it fell through my own tears! Experience of need quickened my spirit in prayer, and brought me into nearer and more blessed communion with the Fountain of all my good.

Who sends afflictions? Surely God appoints our burdens. He therefore is thinking of us and dealing directly with us. Do we not find immediate comfort in believing that all God's providences toward us are intended for our own good? His thoughts are kind toward us, though the means he takes to bless us with spiritual good may seem severe. I have found it a comfort to be assured, even by the coming and presence of a sorrow, that God was near me even though he came as a wise gardener to prune the vine from which he desired better fruit!

“You find some enjoyment in pain and suffering, then,” you say.

Oh, no! my flesh shrinks as sensitively as yours, my friend; my heart has loved, and the grave holds some of my treasures—and yet I tell you that the angel of comfort hides her calm face under the dark wings of sorrow! Yes; I will be a witness for God that he encourages his suffering ones through, and in, their afflictions.

Sad, yet cheerful—how can it be? It cannot be except through faith. We are to “have faith in God.” When? When what we see and feel is calculated to make us doubt that he loves us and designs our best good. Then we are to have faith—when we cannot see. When faith is strong, we shall not count cares and crosses to be only “things against us.” Our earthly ease seems to lose a little of its importance to our selfish natures, while faith sheds its light upon the soul and its deepest needs.

Did you never see that a season of sickness had been a time of refreshing from the Lord's presence, to some dear child of God whom you have known? I once had a friend very ill, and she repeated to me the remarks her minister made to her at her bedside. She told me that in his prayer he gave God thanks that he “had appointed to his suffering child a vacation” in the midst of life's cares and confusions, in which she might be alone with her Father in Heaven, listening to all that he would say to her, and receiving the spiritual gifts with which he would enrich her.

Where is there a Christian who will not witness for God that he hath whispered words in the darkness of the cloud which “the world” did not hear, and ministered comfort to the trusting soul in the very time and experience of affliction?—Sel.