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The more we learn of the many-colored tissue of life the more we discover that our kind Lord has as many ways of meeting His children as there are trials to flesh and to spirit. Perhaps one of the weariest trials is the heavy feeling of uselessness to God and man that comes down like snow on the heart. Any deprivation would be welcome if only we had something to offer to our Lord or to the least of our fellow servants. And we think of the wise men from the East, who opened their treasures and presented unto Him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh. Happy wise men. All the toils of their travel must have been forgotten when they poured out their precious things before Him. Why have we nothing to offer when they had so much? We have nothing now but our poor love to give.
To a heart troubled by this question came one day a strange reply: “Thou gayest Me no water for My feet: thou gayest Me no kiss.” For a moment that heart waited, not understanding; but presently, softly, these other words came: “To love that could miss so small a sign of love as water, and a kiss, is not love the dearest offering?”
And may we all be Thine own Marys, Lord?
Dear worthy Lord, how courteous Love’s reward:
For all the little that I give to Thee,
Thou gayest first to me.
Rich is Thy harvest, O Thou Corn of Wheat:
A cloud of lovers gather round Thy feet.
What miracle of love that Thou shouldst miss
Low on Thy feet, one kiss.
But even as one writes one waits, while the candles of God do their work. Whatsoever ye have spoken in darkness shall be heard in the light. Those words are searching candles. What word was spoken in darkness under the snow? What word was spoken in the ear of God alone? Our Lord did not say, “Whatsoever ye have said aloud, whatsoever ye have written in a letter or a book,” but “Whatsoever ye have spoken in darkness where no man was, that most private word ‘in the ear’”—that word shall be heard in the light, that word shall be spoken on the housetops.
Try me, O God, and search the ground of my heart. Let there be spiritual honesty there. So cleanse, so keep, so fill that inner chamber, that when whatsoever was spoken in darkness shall be heard in the light, and when that which was spoken in Thine ear in closets shall be proclaimed upon the housetops, it may abide the judgment of the light.