MOTHER, it rains,” said a little girl, who was looking out at the window. “I am sorry not to make a visit to Emma. She invited me twice before, but it rained, and now it is raining hard again.”
“I hope you will not be unhappy, my dear,” said her mother. “I trust you will be patient, and wait pleasantly for good weather.”
“Mother, you have told me that God knows everything, and that He is always good. Then He certainly must know that there is but one Saturday afternoon in the week, and that this is all the time I have to play with my little friends. He must know that it has rained now these three holidays, and when I wished so much to go visiting. And can He not make sunshine whenever He pleases?”
“We cannot understand all the ways of God, my child; but the Bible tells us He is wise and good. Look out into your little garden, and see how happy the rose-buds are to catch the soft rain in their bosoms, and how the violets lift up their sweet faces to meet it. The cattle too will drink at the stream and be refreshed. Should it be dried up, they would be troubled; and were the green grass to grow brown and die, they would be troubled still more, and some of them might perish for want of food.”
Then the good mother told her daughter of the sandy deserts in the East, and of the camel who patiently bears thirst for many days; and how the fainting traveler watches for the rain cloud, and blesses God when he finds water. Then she showed her a picture of the camel and of the caravan, and told her how they were sometimes buried under the sands of the desert. Then she told her a story of the mother who wandered into the wilderness with her son, and when the water was spent in the bottle, she laid him under the shade to die, and went and prayed in her anguish to God; then how an angel brought the water from heaven, and her son lived. (Gen. 21:1717And God heard the voice of the lad; and the angel of God called to Hagar out of heaven, and said unto her, What aileth thee, Hagar? fear not; for God hath heard the voice of the lad where he is. (Genesis 21:17).) Then they sang together a hymn or two, and the little girl was surprised to find the afternoon so swiftly spent, for the time passed very pleasantly.
So she thanked her kind mother for the stories she had told, and the pictures she had shown her. Then she smiled, and said, “What pleases God is best.”
Her mother kissed her, and said, “Carry this sweet spirit with you, as long as you live, and you will have gathered more wisdom from the storm than from the sunshine.”
ML 09/08/1918