Twenty Years of Pain...and Thankfulness - By Martha Snell Nicholson

 

Twenty Years of Pain...
and Thankfulness

by Martha Snell Nicholson
[lightly edited]

I am looking back over more than twenty years of illness and thanking God for them. Does that sound strange? Ah, but they have brought me gifts, those weary years. I do not enjoy sickness nor suffering, nor the nervous agony and exhaustion that are harder to bear than physical pain. And an invalid must bury so many dear dreams which have death struggles and refuse to die decently and quietly. But God has a way of taking away our toys, and after we have cried for awhile like disappointed children, He fills our hands with jewels which “cannot be valued with the gold of Ophir, with the precious onyx, or the sapphire.” [Job 28:6]

And what friends He has given me! Are there more loyal friends than those who stand by the sick through the years? My family and friends have prayed for me, encouraged me, quietly sacrificed for me, washed my dishes, rubbed my aching head, offered me everything from new books to their very life-blood for blood transfusions. I should like to speak of a very devoted and tender husband, but that is a matter too personal.

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The Brightening Path of Pain - by Martha Snell Nicholson

The Brightening Path of Pain

by Martha Snell Nicholson
[lightly edited]

Everyone needs to work in order to remain normal, and it is such a comfort that none of us are too ill to know the joy of accomplishment, the opportunity to win crowns, sheaves to lay at the feet of the Lord of the harvest. Years ago I was reading the Bible to a little boy of nine who had recently given his heart to Christ. He had had no Christian upbringing and thus the truth of the Word of God was new to him. I found that he caught the marvel of it in a way that shamed me at times. I was explaining about the five kinds of rewards, and read to him the verse, “Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness...” [2 Tim. 4:8]

His eyes grew bigger and bigger, and at last he fairly gasped, “Oh, are there going to be crowns too? I should think it would be enough just to save our souls!”

There is so much we who are the Lord’s can do. I have long had the habit of praying for those whose stories of sin and sorrow are spread all over the pages of our newspapers, even for the murderers awaiting execution. And, of course, I pray for all Christian work and workers everywhere.

Then there is that very quiet work of grace. All summer I have thrilled to a miracle in our back yard. We had a sapling fig tree, only knee high. We poured on the water, and it drank it in and spread its little branches to catch the sunshine. I took such pride in it and would stroke its straight strong trunk and limbs so unlike my twisted body. It grew so quietly, never a sound nor a stir, yet now it is six feet tall, and this fall gave us largess of gifts, great fat figs bursting with their own sweetness. So we, on quiet beds of pain, may drink in His Word, and open our hearts to His Holy Spirit until we too bear fruit.

It is such a blessing to know that God makes no mistakes, that this illness is not something that just happened to me. “Shall the thing framed say of him that framed it, He hath no understanding?” [Is. 29:16]  No, the enduring is mine, to be sure, but the responsibility for it is entirely His, and what a difference that makes! Nothing can even touch the child of God without His permissive will. It is not necessary for me to know the reasons, for they are safe with our dear Lord, “in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” [Col. 2:2-3]

I am no wise theologian, but I have thought that surely God will be glad when this is all over and He will no longer have to watch His children suffer, when all tears will be wiped from our eyes, and a song put upon our lips. Until then cannot we “endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ” [2 Tim. 2:3] and spare Him the sound of our wailing?

Living for Christ In Chronic Illness

I have added a new section to The Home Makers Corner. I hope that it will be of help to your or someone you know. This is a menu page of various articles, poems, thoughts, and helps.

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Link to the page: Living for Christ In Chronic Illness

Excerpt:

John 9:3 Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.

John 11:4 When Jesus heard that, he said, This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby.

Having dealt with chronic health conditions for much or all of my life, this is a subject that is close to my heart. I have been, perhaps, slow in making it a separate subject here on The Home Maker's Corner, but in some respects this may have been a good thing since experience tends to lend better understanding. At this point in time (2022) we are beginning to feel the lasting effects of Covid-19. Some people are struggling to regain their previous health and there is no timeline to tell us how long it will take, so this section of the HMC may be more needful than it even was before.

If you are dealing with chronic illness or health conditions yourself, or if you have a loved one who is, I hope that you will find something here that will encourage, edify, instruct or otherwise bless you. I have already written a series of articles and I hope to prepare them to be published here over the next months.

When Skies Are Brass - By Martha Snell Nicholson

Philippians 1:6  Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ:

When Skies Are Brass

When skies are brass and, though we pray,
No answer comes; and when our day
Is filled with pain and grief and care,
Sometimes we wonder, "Is God there?
And does He hear us - does He know
The pangs we suffer? And if so -
Because He is omnipotent,
And we so weak, our small strength spent -
Why not reach down His mighty hand
To help?" Could we but understand
His ways with us - could we but know
What God is doing for us now!

What is God doing for us now?
O child of His, why should we know?
He is the Potter, we the dust,
Shaped by His hand. Can we not trust?
Enough that He, the Perfect One,
Will finish what He has begun.
The Master Artist's own design,
Worked out in lives like yours and mine.
The Shepherd knoweth what is best
For that small lamb upon His breast;
And tenderly the FATHER feeds
And nourishes the child He leads.

O suffering ones, whose skies are brass,
Know that all grief and pain will pass;
All tears be dried. We may be sure
This life is but the overture.
Some day our voices we shall raise
In swelling symphonies of praise . . .
We could not bear it yet to know
What God is doing for us now!

- by Martha Snell Nicholson

2 Corinthians 4:16-18  For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.