p. 517 | ACQUAINTED WITH GRIEF by Mrs. M. E. Sangster

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Aug 25, 1887

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 13, No. 33.

ACQUAINTED WITH GRIEF.

By Mrs. M. E. Sangster

ACQUAINTED with grief! Familiar and dear as is the sacred phrase, it struck me the other day with a sense almost of novelty as the pastor repeated it in his prayer. And then came the comfort, brought on the wings of the prayer which, rising heavenward from that hushed congregation, was answered in benediction as soon as the petition fell from the lips of the man of God. Acquainted with grief! Yes, there could be no question of that. The Saviour knows our trials, measures them by his own experience. "He came unto his own, and his own received him not." The "foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head." "If it be possible, let this cup pass from me." "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"

Thronging on memory came passages like these, and then tenderly, as if spoken by an audible voice, followed that thrilling assurance: "In all their affliction He was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them." It is because he is acquainted with grief, because grief was his companion, known to him in its every phase, that he is able to help to the uttermost all who come to him.

We never give genuine help where we have no common ground of sympathy. We may pity, but we cannot comfort, those whom we view only from the outside, having nothing by which to gauge their suffering. There is a touching story told of a mother who sat in stony pallor beside the coffin of her babe. Not a moan escaped her; not a tear fell. Friends feared for her reason, and one and another talked, complained, scolded, recited the old platitudes, averred that the child was better off, that nobody knew from what trouble it was saved, and so on. All in vain. The icy hand was at her heart, and the fount of tears was locked. Presently there came over the threshold a simple working-woman, with hard hands and furrowed face—a woman who had left her mop and broom in the kitchen on hearing of the grief that had befallen her employer. The toil-worn, unlearned woman gathered the lady in her pitying arms, cradling her against her breast. "Dear heart!" she whispered, "I know all about it. I have lost five!" And that was the touch of nature which brought healing.

How could we love the Lord as we do if we did not know that he was our brother in sorrow, that, sharing our humanity completely, he felt with us in our dark days as well as in our bright? For, ignore it as we may, meet it calmly as we can, the fact remains that the dark days must come. They are sent for our discipline. They are robed in mist and cloud, and while we sit in their shadow their angels are busy in loosening the strings which bind us to the earth, and enabling us to wish for the better country, where

"Everlasting spring abides, And never-withering flowers."

That we are not so in love with the earth as never to be ready to leave it is perhaps due to the fact that one sorrow after another shows us Heaven's beauty as in revelation, and wooes us hither by giving us treasure there.

And when once our feet stand upon the eternal hills it will be our joy to meet the Lord, who, all our journey, over rough and smooth, helped us, acquainted like ourselves with grief.—Mrs. M. E. Sangster, in Christian Union.