The human idol is removed!
(Octavius Winslow, “Bereavement, The Submission and Solace of Spiritual Life”)
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Bereavement is often the season of revived spirituality:
eternity is more solemnly realized;
the mind is more withdrawn from the affairs of the present life;
the heart is disengaged from the shadows of earth; and
the things that are seen and temporal–give place to the things that are unseen and eternal.
Oh, see that this is one hallowed fruit of your present sorrow! God has sent it to revive His work in your soul; to draw off your thoughts and affections from those earth-born things which have too much absorbed the vitality, and impaired the vigor of your higher life–your life for God; for Heaven; for eternity!
Bereavement is a time of prayer. If ever the solace of prayer is felt, and the preciousness of the Mercy Seat is realized–it is now. Your heart, stricken with grief, turns to God. The sad and startling discovery is made; unsuspected while the light of God was upon your tabernacle–that too far and too long your heart had roved from God. Your communion had grown distant, and your affections chilled; and, shyness of God and leanness of soul have supervened, as the natural consequence of your remote and careless walk.
But now the shadow of death has darkened the sunshine of your life. The destroyer has invaded the sanctuary of your home, and has plucked a cherished flower from your bosom; or, has broken a ‘strong and beautiful staff’ at your side; or, has laid low a venerable oak spreading its branches over your dwelling. And your heart, bowed with grief, now bows itself in prayer to God–and the spiritual life of your soul throbs with a newer and more quickened pulse!
Oh hail that as a heaven-sent blessing, robed though it be with the dress of mourning; which wakes the slumbering spirit of prayer, and sets you upon the work of calling upon God!
The human idol is removed, but the Divine Savior takes its place!
Oh, it is so hard to yield what was most dear; to give back to God a loan–the possession of which seemed intertwined with every fiber of the heart, and the existence of which had become essential to life itself!
But tracing a Father’s hand and a Father’s heart–His all wise and righteous government appointing the event, and His infinite and unchanging love sending it–your bewildered mind and bleeding heart bows in submission, with the words of Christ breathing from your lips, “My Father, if this cup may not pass from me unless I drink it–may Your will be done.”
And thus, in this submission of your will to God–this terrible calamity has issued in such a development and growth of your spiritual life as leaves its reality without a doubt, and its luster without a cloud. And, as music sounds the sweetest in the still of night; and as flowers, when bruised, breathe their richest perfume–so your night of weeping and crushing grief, has issued in the sweetest song of your bruised spirit, and in the holiest fragrance of your spiritual life.
Oh, who can adequately portray . . .
the perfect calm,
the hallowed repose,
the ecstatic joy
–when the Divine will is supremely enthroned in the soul; and the sad heart nestles itself, as a child weaned of its mother, in the very bosom of God!
