| Home Making |
Chapter 7 |
Page 18 |
Or perhaps the child lives to be ten or twelve years old. She is the light and joy of the home. Great promises begin to bud and blossom out in her life. Then she dies. As the parents bend over her and kiss her pale, cold lips, they mourn over the crushed hopes that lie there, like buds opening only to be killed by the frost. In imagination they have seen her standing forth in all the splendor of queenly womanhood, crowned with honor, beauty and love. But she has died without realizing these hopes. She has fallen just on the threshold of life. Yet who will say that she did no work in those brief, bright years? She has been a blessing in her home all the time, drawing out the love of tender hearts, scattering influences of joy and purity. Now she is gone, but the work she has done in the home hearts and lives remains and never can be taken away.
God takes away your children, and in faith you surrender them to him to see them no more in this world; but you cannot give back all that they have brought to you. In your heart new springs of love were opened by their coming; and you cannot give these back. Death cannot take out of your life the new experiences which you had in pressing them to your heart or in loving and caring for them through the sunny years. You are better, stronger, richer in you nature, more a man or a woman, because you have held in your arms and have nurture your own child. These new outreaching of your life never can be taken from you. Like new branches of a tree they will remain ever after part of yourself. Though the loved ones are removed, the results of their coming to you and staying with you, the influences, the impressions made, the qualities, the new growths in your life, will never depart. They are your permanent possessions for ever. Tennyson puts this truth in happy phrase:
“God give us love; something to love
He lends us; but when love is grown
To ripeness, that on which it throve
Falls off; and love is left alone.”
Page 18
<< Prior Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 Next Page >>