Sorrows Turned Into Joy
By Theodore I. Cuyler
We often make sad mistakes as to what is best for us. We often hide our richest blessings under a pall, and decorate with garlands our temptations, or the sources of our spiritual sorrows and shame. The poor old patriarch Jacob was shrouded in gloom when he wailed out, “All these things are against me!” Joseph is gone; Simeon is gone; and they have carried away also Benjamin, who bore in his boyish face the photograph of the beautiful Rachel. He calls his lot a sad one. But the returning caravan is almost in sight which brings to him the full sacks from Egypt’s granaries, and the joyful invitation to go and see his long-lost Joseph as premier of Pharaoh’s kingdom. His dark hour is just before the day-dawn. What he regarded as a sorrow has grown into the greatest mercy of his life. We have a striking illustration of the mistakes short-sighted people often make, by turning to a verse in the fourth chapter of the first book of Chronicles. There we read that “Jabez was more honorable than his brethren; and his mother called his name15Jabez, saying, Because I bare him with sorrow.” For some reason or other she puts the mark of her grief on the brow of her child, and calls him “sorrowful.” Yet the very child that was born in tears and christened with a sad name grew up to be the ornament and glory of her household. He outstripped all his brethren! God honored him with so many blessings, and his career was so bright and beneficent, that people must have wondered how he ever came to have so doleful a name. His history was like the April shower, that begins with weeping clouds, but ends in brilliant sunbursts and in rainbows painted on the sky. We are often as blind as that Hebrew mother, and make the same egregious mistakes. We persist in naming things sorrows which turn out to be rich blessings in disguise. Who ever congratulates a man on the loss of his fortunes, or the failure of his ambitious schemes? Yet, while his purse is being emptied, his soul may be filling full with God’s grace. More than one man has been bankrupted into spiritual wealth. Be careful how you tell a sick friend that his sickness is a great affliction — when it may be sent of God to soften his heart, to bring him to reflection and repentance. . . . If we wish to sympathize with any parent, let it rather be with her whose living children are fooling away life in frivolity, or are hardening into the sins that may yet break the heart of her who bore them. A thousand times over have I pitied more the mother of a living sorrow than I have pitied the mother of a departed joy. Parents, spare your tears from those who have gone; . . . spend them on those children who are yet alive, but are still untouched by repentance or unconverted to God. Don’t stop with weeping over their impenitence. Strive to win them, by kind counsels and prayers and by a holy example, to the Saviour; then your sorrow may be turned into joy. The Bible is like a vast orchard, where precious fruit is often hidden behind the leaves. This story of Jabez — if you turn it out from under the leaves — has many a golden teaching. It teaches us not to be frightened by present troubles, or cast down by to-day’s discouragements. Every true, deep Christian life begins in griefs over sin and in sharp conflicts with temptation. A religion that has too easy a birth seldom grows into a strong, victorious Christ-likeness; he who never weeps over sin will never sing for joy or chant harvest-hymns over full sheaves of blessing. The enterprises also that cost us the most anxiety and toil and self-denial are those that, like Jabez, “enlarge their borders,” and yield the after-crops of large results. There may have been some wet eyes up in that prayer-room in Jerusalem, where the little band met after their Master had left them. They were sowing in tears, to reap with joy before the next day’s sun went down. Never despair of a good cause. Never despair of a great heaven-directed reform, even when the powers of hell are striving to strangle it. Never despair of a child. The one that fills you with most solicitude, and occasions your most fervent prayers, may yet gladden your life with joys beyond your highest hopes. Never despair of a soul so long as you can plead with God for that soul, or strive to bring it into a full view of Christ.