Part 5 (1/2)
Since I began to write this chapter I have had a long talk with one whose life is sorely bent. Ten years since I first knew her as a bright and happy young girl, her face sunny in the light of G.o.d's love.
Trouble came into her life in many forms. Her own father proved unworthy, failing in all the sacred duties of affection toward his child. Events in her own life were disappointing and discouraging.
Friends in whom she had trusted failed in that faithfulness and helpfulness which one has a right to expect from one's friends. There was a succession of unhappy experiences, through several years, all tending to hurt her heart-life. As the result of all this, she has become embittered and hardened, not only against those who have wronged her and treated her unjustly, but even against G.o.d. So long has she yielded to these feelings that her whole life has been bent down from its upward, G.o.dward look into settled despondency. G.o.d has altogether faded out of her soul's vision, and she thinks of him only as unkind and unjust. To restore her life to its former brightness and beauty will require a moral miracle as great as that by which the body of the crooked woman was made straight.
Then there are lives also that are bowed down by toil and care. For many people, life's burdens are very heavy. There are fathers of large families who sometimes find their load almost more than they can bear, in their efforts to provide for those who are dear to them. There are mothers who, under their burdens of household care, at times feel themselves bowed down, and scarcely able longer to go on. In all places of responsibility, where men are called to stand, the load many times grows very heavy, and stalwart forms bend under it. This world's work is hard for most of us. Life is not play to any who take it earnestly.
And many persons yield to the weight of a duty, and let themselves be bent down under it. We see men bowing under their load, until their very body grows crooked, and they can look only downward. We see them become prematurely old. The light goes out of their eyes; the freshness fades out of their cheeks; the sweetness leaves their spirit.
Few things in life are sadder than the way some people let themselves be bent down by their load of duty or care. There really is no reason why this should be so. G.o.d never puts any greater burden upon us than we are able to bear, with the help he is ready to give. Christ stands ever close beside us, willing to carry the heaviest end of every load that is laid upon us.
Men never break down so long as they keep a happy, joyous heart. It is the sad heart that tires. Whatever our load, we should always keep a songful spirit in our breast. There are two ways of meeting hard experiences. One way is to struggle and resist, refusing to yield.
The result is, the wounding of the soul and the intensifying of the hardness. The other way is sweetly to accept the circ.u.mstances or the restraints, to make the best of them, and to endure them songfully and cheerfully. Those who live in the first of these ways grow old at mid-life. Those who take the other way of life keep a young, happy heart even to old age.
The true way to live is to yield to no burden; to carry the heaviest load with courage and gladness; never to let one's eyes be turned downward toward the earth, but to keep them ever lifted up to the hills. Men whose work requires them to stoop all the time--to work in a bent posture--every now and then may be seen straightening themselves up, taking a long, deep breath of air, and looking up toward the skies.
Thus their bodies are preserved in health and erectness in spite of their work. Whatever our toil or burden, we should train ourselves to look often upward, to stand erect, and get a frequent glimpse of the sky of G.o.d's love, and a frequent breath of heaven's pure, sweet air.
Thus we shall keep our souls erect under the heaviest load of work or care.
The miracle of the straightening of the woman who was bent double, has its gospel of precious hope for any who have failed to learn earlier the lesson of keeping straight. The bowed down may yet be lifted up.
The curvature of eighteen years' growth and stiffening was cured in a moment. The woman who for so long had not been able to look up, went away with her eyes upturned to G.o.d in praise.
The same miracle Christ is able to work now upon souls that are bent, whether by sin, by sorrow, or by life's load of toil. He can undo sin's terrible work, and restore the divine image to the soul. He can give such comfort to the sad heart that eyes long downcast shall be lifted up to look upon G.o.d's face in loving submission and joy. He can put such songs into the hearts of the weary and overwrought that the crooked form shall grow straight, and brightness shall come again into the tired face.
CHAPTER IX.
TRANSFIGURED LIVES.
”The lives which seem so poor, so low, The hearts which are so cramped and dull, The baffled hopes, the impulse slow, Thou takest, touchest all, and lo!
They blossom to the beautiful.”
--SUSAN COOLIDGE.
Every Christian's life should be transfigured. There is a sense in which even a true believer's body becomes transfigured. We have all seen faces that appeared to s.h.i.+ne as if there were some hidden light behind them. There are some old people who have learned well life's lessons of patience, peace, contentment, love, trust, and hope, and whose faces really glow as they near the sunset gates. Sometimes it is a saintly sufferer, who, in long endurance of pain, learns to lie on Christ's bosom in sweet unmurmuring quiet, and whose features take upon themselves increasingly the brightness of holy peace.
But whatever grace may do for the body, it always transfigures the character. The love of G.o.d finds us ruined sinners, and leaves us glorified saints. We are predestinated ”to be conformed to the image of his Son.” Nor are we to wait for death to transform us; the work should begin at once. We have a responsibility, too, in this work.
The sculptor takes the blackened marble block and hews it into a form of beauty. The marble is pa.s.sive in his hands, and does nothing but submit to be cut and hewn and polished as he will. But we are not insensate marble; we have a part in the fas.h.i.+oning of our lives into spiritual holiness. We will never become like Christ without our own desire and effort.
We ought to know well what our part is, what we have to do with our own sanctification. How, then, may we become transfigured Christians?
There is a transfiguring power in prayer. It was as our Lord was praying that the fas.h.i.+on of his countenance was altered. What is prayer? It is far more than the tame saying over of certain forms of devotion. It is the pouring out of the heart's deepest cravings. It is the highest act of which the soul is capable. When you pray truly, all that is best, n.o.blest, most exalted, purest, heavenliest in you, presses up toward G.o.d. Hence earnest prayer always lights up the very face, and lifts up the life into higher, holier mood. We grow toward that which we much desire. Hence prayers for Christ-likeness have a transfiguring effect.
Holy thoughts in the heart have also a transfiguring influence on the life. ”As he thinketh in his heart, so is he.” If we allow jealousies, envies, ugly tempers, pride, and other evil things to stay in our heart, our life will grow into the likeness of these unlovely things. But if we cherish pure, gentle, unselfish, holy thoughts and feelings, our life will become beautiful.
Professor Drummond tells of a young girl whose character ripened into rare loveliness. Her friends watched her growing gentleness and heavenliness with wonder. They could not understand the secret of it.
She wore about her neck a little locket within which no one was allowed to look. Once, however, she was very ill, and one of her companions was permitted then to open this sacred ornament, and she saw there the words, ”Whom having not seen I love.” This was the secret. It was love for the unseen Christ that transfigured her life. If we think continually of the Christ, meditating upon him, thinking over sweet thoughts of him, and letting his love dwell within us, we shall grow like him.