Growing Round a Trouble
By Clara Edna Rosencrans
"Did you ever try adopting a trouble?" said Grandon Cope. "Adopting a trouble," I said. "I don't understand you, Mr. Cope." "Well, then, 'growing round one,' just as we plant vines and flowers about some unsightly object, such as a stone or a stump, allowing them to overgrow and beautify it, until it becomes the most attractive thing in our garden." THESE words which Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney puts into the mouth of one of her characters, seem to me pregnant with meaning; for, altho we all have troubles, vastly more depends on the attitude which we assume toward them than on the greatness of the trials themselves. I have met those who have borne bitter sorrows; yet, instead of being softened and made better by them, they were hard, bitter, and unyielding as flint. The earth around the ugly stump or stone can be enriched and made fertile, so that there will be life-giving power and substance for the seeds there planted; or it can be left barren and hard, so as to yield nothing but a sickly crop of bitter weeds. How often we hear the remark, "The richest place in my garden is around that old stump"! So in the spring morning-glories and cypress seeds are planted there, and it is made a thing of beauty. Now we can do this very thing with our soul garden. Where the bitterest sorrow is — where the pain is the sorest — there may the sweetest graces grow, just as the water-lily draws its nourishment from the murky depths of some muddy pool. On the other hand, we may cultivate bitter or rebellious thoughts until our garden will bring forth nothing but noxious poison-plants, exhaling vile odors and injuring all who touch them. I have two little friends — wheel-chair cripples, both of them — whose lives exemplify what I have said. The older one is sadly, pitifully deformed, almost totally blind, and more than half of the time can not raise her voice above a whisper; yet peace and joy are not merely transient guests, but have come to make their home with her. She is the counselor, helper, and sympathizer of and with a large circle of acquaintances, and is beloved by all who know her. The "blessed hope" is ever more dear to her as her life nears the sunset. The other is a tiny creature who, tho past twenty, has never stood upon her feet. Her life is full of business, and her hands are never idle. I have known her for years, yet never have I heard a word of complaint escape her lips, while her merry voice is good to hear. Both of them have doubtless known sorrow and more than the usual crosses, and yet how happy they are! In marked contrast to these is another life that has touched my own. This woman, altho she has had at least a large measure of life's blessings, has yet grown steadily bitter and unlovely, and as the growing infirmities of age draw on, her life is very unhappy. While my heart goes out to her in pity, I can not but see the foolishness of letting the sour rind of her own unhappiness surround her poor old heart, until she can think of nothing but her misery. The first two have grown over and around their troubles, until they have ennobled, uplifted, and glorified them. They have lived in such close companionship with pain and sorrow that they are no longer strangers, and thus can say as did Paul, "All things work together for good to them that love God;" and while they wait here in the shadow, they can look forward to the eternal weight of glory and to the life where there will be no more pain. To such suffering and sorrowing ones comes with added joy the assurance, "Affliction shall not rise up the second time." Pain may torture the body, sorrow may rack the soul; but overgrowing, covering up — beautifying — the things which Satan would make unsightly, are the special graces of Christ, seen in such manifest glory that we can but envy them the accomplishment while we shrink from the pain which has wrought it out. Who shall say that the poor old stump, covered with its weight of fragrant bloom, is not more beautiful in its decay than was the tree clothed in its springtime verdure? And who shall say that these lives, fragrant with the incense of self-yielding, could have borne richer fruit for the Master had the soul been left untrammeled and the body unbent and free? There is blessedness in such faith as this. There is joy in thus living above pain and sorrow — and "growing around our trouble"!