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A difficult decision, the kind that looks like sheer cliff, can lead straight to where the flowers of light, as someone has called them, grow up and down the rocks. “The work of righteousness shall be peace; the effect of righteousness quietness and assurance forever.” However trying to flesh and blood the right act may be, once hesitation is over and the way is clearly seen, then the effects begin to appear: peace, quietness, assurance forever.
What would be called loneliness by those who do not know the secret of the Lord can turn into an angel’s garden on the face of the cliff. With many other climbers I have found such gardens.
There was a year a long time ago, before our Indian family as it is now had been created, when I had to be left alone, because illness had forced my fellow missionaries to go home on furlough. It was a year of edelweiss.
That year began in the hour when I stood on the verandah of our three-roomed bungalow, listening to the scrunch of the wheels of the bullock cart as it turned on the rough gravel and drove unwillingly away. The cry of a child in delirium seemed to fill the house (for a little girl I was nursing was very ill: she almost died that night). There was no one else in the house. The servants had gone to their homes in the village, the Indian woman who would presently help me had not come yet; the rooms had that forlorn, deserted air that rooms always wear just after their owners have gone, but I was not lonely. There was something new in the “feel” of the house, familiar and yet new, and that sense of a light in a dim place, and an infinitely loving, brooding Presence near (but “near” is too distant a word) was an abiding strength.
But I know it is not the sense of His presence, it is the fact of His presence that is our strength and stay. And yet it is comforting when a mother makes some little sign, or speaks some little word to a child who does not see her. And when our Father deals so tenderly with us, then we are very humbly grateful and we store such memories in our heart. And when there is not any feeling we rest on His bare word, “Lo, I am with you always, all the days, and all day long,” and are content.
The bright flowers of the edelweiss waiting to be gathered among the rough rocks of difficult circumstances—we may call the consolations of God what we will—who are we that we should find such comforts anywhere? Love prepared, Love planted, Love led us to these enchanting discoveries. A child cannot bear to enjoy a delight alone; it turns to its nearest friend with a shout of joy and shares its treasures. Turn so to thy Nearest, soul beloved, speak thy quick thanks and share thy joy. Forget not the Giver in the gift. Offer not the discourtesy of remembering thy Unseen Companion only when nettles sting thee, and thorns prick thee, and thy feet are cut on the stones.