'The rough stalk of suffering!
The rough stalk of suffering!
"I have refined you in the furnace of suffering!" Isaiah 48:10
Much of the most beautiful living in this world, comes out of sorrow. As "lovely flowers bloom upon rough stalks," so many of the loveliest flowers of human life grow upon the rough stalk of suffering .
We take our place with the beloved disciple on the other side, and we see that those who in Heaven wear the whitest robes, and sing the loudest songs of victory — are "the ones who have come out of the great tribulation!" Revelation 7:14
Heaven's highest places are filling, not from earth's homes of glad festivity and tearless joy — but from . . .
its chambers of pain ,
its valleys of struggle where the battle is hard,
its scenes of sorrow , where pale cheeks are wet with tears, and where hearts are broken.