Personality for Christ
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Dear friend,
It has been a pleasure all these years, to get letters from you — but since you paid the little visit to my office and I saw you face to face and had a few minutes' talk with you — you are much more of a reality and less of a mere idealism, than you were formerly. I can see your kindly face looking out from the pages on which you write, and can hear your voice as I read the words over.
God has given you much in your personality. What a wonderful gift personality is! Those to whom God has given the power of helping others merely by their presence, of being a benediction, an encouragement, a comfort to them, even without any words — are especially gifted. I know Christians who are not brilliant, who never do any great things — but whose lives are so true, so consistent, so Christlike, that wherever they go, they carry in their very presence a bit of heavenly sunshine.
Concerning one of these, a friend said a few years ago, standing by the coffin of the young woman who had been called home, "Wherever she went, flowers grew in her pathway, and the air was always sweeter when she entered the room." This is true of certain lives, even apart from what they do. Of course, usually, it is the godly life and character, which makes the pleasant face, and which gives to the presence its strange power. May God give you grace always to be a blessing wherever you go, not only in the things you do and the things you say — but still more in the sweet and quiet influence of your life.
I am glad to read what you say about your home and your work. I trust that this year will bring you all the work that you can do well, without overcrowding you. You have a special gift for writing missionary articles, in particular phases of Sunday-school work, and on practical subjects which are always fitting. You have given your pen to Christ — that is the best part of it all — and whenever you choose to write you write for him, or, rather, he writes through you. I trust that you will have as much as you can do during the year, and that you will be strong and well for whatever comes to you.
You must enjoy your missionary meetings, going about from place to place and speaking to earnest people. I trust that more and more this field will widen for you, giving you new opportunities of speaking for Christ and advocating missionary work.
It must have been very pleasant to meet the old friend and have her recall so much of your babyhood and infancy. These links with the past are always very tender. I understand what you say about the healing of your sorrows. God never blames you for your love or for the tenderness of your feelings when you recall the memory of those who are gone.
My thought, however, is that we should accept God's comfort by sweet acquiescence in his will, in faith that whatever he permits in our life, is right and best for us. Then I think, also, that if we allow our faith to make more real to us the continued existence of our saved loved ones in Heaven, with all their faculties, their affections, their beauties of character. This ought to be a great comfort to us, helping us not only to acquiesce — but to rejoice.
For example, my mother has been very much more real to me during the long years since she died, than she was during the same number of years before she left this world. I saw her then but rarely — not more than once a year. Then she was a sufferer most of the time and every thought I had of her was painful, because it brought her before me in illness or feebleness.
Now, however, I think of her as away beyond all sickness, all suffering, all pain, having lost nothing that was beautiful in her life, a transfigured woman, in the presence of Christ, engaged in His service in another world. This is a wonderful comfort to me. It not only makes her existence even more real than it was when she was living in Ohio — but it makes the thought of her very much sweeter and more joyous.
I am sure that as you go on and realize more and more of your mother's life as it is now with Christ in the heavenly kingdom — your comfort will become deeper and your peace will become deeper and sweeter.
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