Helped by Hindrances
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Dear friend,
It is not easy in some ways for you to meet life. It looms up before you like a mountain, and it seems to you that you never can climb to its summit. But you need have no fear of life, however it may seem to pile up its difficulties before your face. All you have to do is to put your hand in the hand of Christ, and to let him lead you step by step. I believe that God has a plan for every life; that he knows what he wants each one of his children to do for him in his world. George Macdonald speaks of this somewhere, and says: "To have been thought about by God, born in God's thought, and then made by God, is the dearest, grandest and most precious thought in all thinking."
It certainly is a thought of comfort and uplifting, to know that you were thought about before you were born, and that God sent you into this world to do some particular thing, to fill some particular place. This is not fatalism. While God has this plan and purpose for your life — you have to fulfill it and carry it out yourself. That is to say, there is something that he wants you to do, something that he wants you to attain in character and life and influence. But the reaching of this ideal is something which you yourself will have to work out in detail.
Then let me say also to you that the things that may seem to be hindrances to you, perhaps insuperable hindrances — are the very means by which you are to reach the divine thought for you. We learn best when we are under pressure, when we are carrying burdens, when we have responsibilities, and when tasks and duties fill our hands. All you have to do is to accept your place as one of God's children, to know that he is planning for you, thinking about you, and then to put yourself in perfect accord with God in striving to become what he wants you to become, and to do what he wants you to do.
You speak of the loss of money. Perhaps some day you will thank God even for this loss. I have had many experiences with young people in such cases. A young woman came to me to tell me that she was even grateful for the loss of fortune which occurred some fifteen years ago. She said to me that if their money had not been taken away from them, she would have been simply a spoiled child, petted and pampered, with no strength of her own, and no place amid the world's activities. But the taking away of the money made it necessary for her to take up life's burdens for herself. She became first a stenographer, and then an assistant secretary in a leading institution for young people, and for several years past has been registrar in the institution. Thus she has risen to noble womanhood and a position of great influence, with countless opportunities for helping other young people in their lives. What she thanked God for, was the blessing which had come in her own case from the loss of money. Instead of money — she has now training and strength, and noble womanhood, and the opportunity for large service.
I give you this merely as a word of encouragement.
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