Candle in the dark

Reading Amy Carmichael tonight.

" . . . Your prayer for perfect healing went to my heart. God knows how I long to be well and able to do more. But yesterday as I read Psalm 84:11, `No good thing will He withhold from them that live a godly life', I wondered if He would not rather the emphasis were laid on this: `Draw us so into accord with Thyself that no good thing shall be withheld', instead of: `Health is a good thing. Lord, give it.'

More than three times I have prayed Paul's prayer, but so far always the answer has been the one that came to him: `My grace is sufficient for thee' (2 Corinthians 12:9).

Any day that might change. What is any illness to Him? One touch and it would be gone. But I wonder if the Lord is saying not only to me but also to you, `See to it that you are in perfect accord with Me and then trust Me to withhold no good thing.'

If health be that good thing, oh, how joyful it will be! Every morning I waken with the hope, `Perhaps today'. But I want first to want His will, be that will mine or not. It is there that prayer can help most.

You don't need words to tell you how I am feeling about this weary pain. It seems sometimes that there is no way to God's best but through pain, and yet how earnestly one longs to save a dear one from it.

Don't be disappointed about not being fit for work just yet. `Let patience have her perfect work' has been one of the words set to me to learn by heart. I never found patience easy, being by nature a most impatient mortal; even one week in bed seemed impossible in old days. Well, I only tell you so to help you to know that I understand the ache to be well and up and out. And He understands far better than I do. I often think of those hours on the cross---helpless hours. He understands.

And the depression that follows pain He understands too. `My soul cleaveth to the dust': no truer words were ever written. Sometimes just to know one is understood helps. . ."

"CHRIST suffered in the flesh.
If those who follow Him in obedience now
are called to suffer (as they will be),
they can conquer if they arm themselves
with the same mind' (1 Peter 4:1)

He looked on to the glory which should follow.
So they."

Looking on to glory through my tears.