Comfort in the Face of Trials

An account of severe trial that Amy Carmichael encountered while caring for orphans on the mission field of India. This story made me dwell on the trials that missionaries go through while far from home, and often without the help of an earthly partner or comrade during the trial. If only we could pray as we ought for those in the fields whose struggle is greater than ours. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

On the last unshadowed day before the epidemic came which swept our nursery bare, we made a feast in the new room. The children sat in rows on the floor, gay as a garden of living flowers, in their crimson and yellow and blue. As the laughing voices called her from side to side and end to end, the baby danced and clapped hands, and tried to walk to everyone who called. Life was bright to us that day, for the weak little babes were fairly well, and all children were perfectly well, and the treasure babe who was always well was fuller than ever of joyousness. And the sweet ways of a baby beloved, untroubled by any hurting thing, seemed sweeter than ever that bright day, as she held out her hands to one and another, and nestled in our arms. When the feast was over we went to the courtyard garden, and the baby clapped her hands with delight when the wind stirred the leaves of the trees, and blew the flowers about. Then they made a little garland and hung it around her neck, and twined the blossoms together and crowned their queen.

On that last evening only a few weeks later, but it seemed years, the baby lay most peacefully upon my mother's knee. She had learned to love her and to call her prettily, "Ahta," the baby word for grandmother. That evening as she lay watching with observant eyes everything we did, we almost fancied she understood, and way trying to help us to help her, so wise were all her little ways. Then came the nearing sound of the children singing as they returned from their lessons. The baby always clapped when we sang. She tried to clap now, raising weak little hands quietly. Often during that afternoon she had looked up, far away up, with intentness nothing could distract, and had beckoned just as she often beckoned to us in a loving little way she had. But still our eyes were holden and we did not see.

So in the early morning of that last day it was as if she tried to tell us. Arulai was beside her watching. She called the little call we knew so well, then once more pointed up, holding her little hand as high as she could. Then, with that utterly joyous look that she always seemed to reserve for the sound of music and singing, she still looked up. Arulai waited, and the baby hands pointed to a musical box which we kept beside her. Arulai held it for her. She turned the handle herself till the first notes came. She had often tried before but never quite alone. Now as the notes struck out she stopped, and again looked up with those joyous eyes, so unlike a baby's eyes in steadfastness, and then she looked at Arulai.

Let me to my heaven go,
A little harp me waits thereby,
A harp whose strings all golden are
And tuned to music spherical,
Hanging on the green life-tree
Where no willow ever be.
Shall I miss that harp of mine?

Then Arulai understood, and felt the stab of the knife. Did the baby see the great grief in her face? She put her little hands up to be kissed, and patted Arulai's cheek caressingly, and then, tired, fell asleep. In the few hours that followed we could not help noticing the other-world expression deepening in the baby's eyes, but even then we did not know that she was going. It is hard to let go hope. Then there was a sudden breaking of the silence, one little cry, the baby's mother-word, "Amma!" And then so gently the Angel came, so gently touched her that she slept, and woke to the music of heaven.

One never realizes quite how many are in sorrow, or have been, until one is sorrowful oneself. Over two hundred years ago Scottish mothers sorrowed, and the letters of comfort written to them bridge those two hundred years, and bring us all together, sorrowful people needing comfort and being comforted.

"You have lost a child," wrote old Samuel Rutherford. May his words bring comfort to someone as they brought comfort to me. "Nay, she is not lost to you who is found to Christ; she is not sent away, but only sent before, like unto a star which going out of our sight doth not die and vanish, but shineth in another hemisphere: you see her not, yet she doth shine in another country. If her glass was but a short hour, what she wanteth of time that she hath gotten of Eternity; and you have to rejoice that you have now some treasure laid up in heaven...Your daughter was a part of yourself, and you, being as it were cut and halved, will indeed be grieved; but you have to rejoice that when a part of you is on earth, a great part of you is glorified in heaven...There is less of you out off heaven that the child is there."

Taken from Amy Carmichael of Donhavur, pages 164-166
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"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows." 2nd Corinthians 1:3-5