A Mother's Burdens
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Dear friend,
I assure you of sympathy in the sickness and care which you have had in your home during the winter. I hope that with the spring days, you will all be well and strong again; then it will not be so hard for you to live. I know well that a mother's tasks in the home, caring for her children, are not light. It is no easy thing to go on in the same routine, day after day, week after week, month after month — always keeping sweet, always having a shining face and a cheerful word, always strong to meet every question and perplexity and difficulty which comes to you.
But I want to say a word of encouragement to you. The mother 's place is the highest place to which any woman can be called. When God puts into your hand a little child to care for, to guide, to teach, to watch over, to inspire and train for life — he puts upon you serious responsibility. But he also promises the strength you need, and the help for every experience. One of Augustine's great prayers was, "Command what you will — and then give what you command." That is the way God always does, if we trust him and go forward in simple confidence. Whatever he commands us to do — he will help us to do. Nothing is impossible when we have Christ with us and in us.
The Emperor of Japan sent to his army recently this word: "Your Emperor and your country expect of you the accomplishment of the impossible." No doubt this little message has been in a large measure the inspiration of the wonderful heroism which the Japanese soldiers have displayed in the war. But Christ sends to us the very same message. He says to us, "Your Master expects of you the accomplishment of the impossible." General Armstrong used to say, "What is a Christian for, but to do the impossible!" Anybody can do possible things, easy things. The trouble is that most people are content with doing just such things as these. But the Christian, with Christ in back of him, is expected to do things that are impossible to other people.
I want to help you to enter upon your days, whatever their care may be, with the confidence that your Master is with you and is going to help you to get through everything beautifully, victoriously, sweetly.
I have read of a good woman who had a large family, who also was in plain circumstances and had to do all her own work and care for her children. She had to rise early in the morning to get her husband off to his work and then to get the children ready for school. One morning, rising a few minutes late, she did not have time for her morning prayer. She hastened from her room to the tasks awaiting her. Everything went wrong that morning.
She was irritable and impatient. After all had gone away from the house and she was alone, she went up to her room with a heavy heart, discouraged and depressed. Taking up her New Testament to read her morning lesson, she turned to where it says of Jesus, "He touched her hand, and the fever left her." The words arrested her.
"If I had had that touch upon my hand this morning before I began my day's tasks, the fever would have left me, and I would have gone through them differently." She never forgot the lesson. Every morning she would get her verse of Scripture and fall upon her knees for a few minutes to get the touch of Christ upon her heart. She was able then to go through all the trying and perplexing tasks and duties of her household without feverishness.
You know what this means. There are other fevers besides those we have the doctor treat — fevers of impatience, of anxiety, of fretfulness, of discontent, of irritability. The touch of Christ upon our hand, always has cooling and refreshing influence. Drummond used to say that ten minutes spent every morning with Christ — yes, even three minutes, if they are spent really with him — change everything for the day. I am not preaching to you — but what you said about your life makes me free to write these things to you. May God bless you and make you very strong and very happy. It is a great thing to be able to live victoriously amid all the cares and frets and frictions and trials of everyday life.
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