Quote of the Day

"Perhaps there have been a dozen different things today that were not joyous, but grievous to you. And though you feel ashamed of feeling them so much, and hardly like to admit their having been so trying, and would not think of dignifying them as chastening, yet, if they come under the Lord's definition, He not only knows all about them, but they were, every one of them, chastening from His hand - neither to be disposed and called 'just nothing' when all the while they did grieve you, nor to be wearied of, because they are working out blessing to you and glory to Him. Every one of them has been an unrecognized token of His love and interest in you...

The particular annoyance that befell you this morning, the vexatious words that met your ear and grieved your spirit, the disappointment that was His appointment for today, the slight but hindering ailment, the presence of someone who is a grief of mind to you. Whatever in this day seems not joyous but grievous, is linked in the good pleasure of His goodness, with a corresponding afterward of peaceable fruit, the very seed from which, if you only do not choke it, this shall spring and ripen. If we set ourselves to watch the Lord's dealings with us, we shall often be able to detect a most beautiful correspondence and proportion between each individual chastening and its own resulting 'afterward.' The habit of thus watching and expecting will be very comforting and a great help to quiet trust when some new chastening is sent, for then we shall consider it as the herald and earnest of a new 'afterward.'"

         - Frances Ridley Havergal in Seasons Of The Heart