When Her Engagement Was Broken
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Dear friend,
I want to say a few earnest words to you, my dear child. I want you to be just as brave and strong as you possibly can be. You have endured a great wrong. The young man has treated you in the most unchristian and unmanly way possible. I cannot conceive of anything very much worse in any man's conduct toward a woman. I sympathize with you in my deepest heart, as you know. But I would very much rather be in your place, than in his. It is better, far better, to suffer a wrong — than to commit a wrong. I am sorry for you, but I pity him a thousand times more. His course has been so cowardly and so unjust and unkind, that he certainly is an object of deep and sincere pity. You stand before God innocent of any blame.
You have been a true and faithful woman in every way. You have treated him with the most perfect confidence and the truest devotion. You have never wavered for a moment in your faithfulness. You have a clear conscience, therefore, and can look into the faces of your friends without a shadow of shame. But in his case, this is not true. He cannot look into God's face and make any explanation which will satisfy. So, as I have said, I would a thousand times rather be in your place, than in his.
What should you do in the matter? Of course you cannot help feeling the disappointment and you cannot help suffering. But I want to help you to rise to a feeling of strength and courage which shall declare your noble womanhood. He has proved himself entirely unworthy of you. Really, while I sympathize with you in your disappointment, I am glad that you did not marry him last Monday. For a man who would treat a girl as he treated you in the month of April, would have made a very uncertain kind of husband for her for the rest of the year, and for the years that come after, if he had married her.
So you can thank God that the matter was broken off. Of course you feel the embarrassment at home among your neighbours — but every one of them will sympathize with you and will approve of your course. Everyone will say of you that the man was not worthy of you. So, my dear child, rise to the dignity of your finest and best womanhood, and determine that you will not yield to this disappointment — but that you will be brave and strong and independent.
Do not blame God for it. Sometimes people talk about such troubles as if God had sent them. God never sends anything that is sinful. The whole burden of the wrong, is upon the man who did it. What part, then, did God have in it? He allowed the man to do the mean and base thing which he did. Now, however, God comes in and sides with you, and will help you to endure this disappointment and this wrong, and to get blessing and good out of it. You remember the story of Joseph's brothers. They sold their younger brother as a slave to get clear of him. It was a terrible wrong. God did not prevent it. But God took into his care the innocent and wronged boy, and caused even the terrible injustice and crime against him to work for his good. He was brought by and by to the highest place in Egypt, and became the saviour of the country from famine, even the savior of the brothers who had so terribly sinned against him.
Your part of this matter, therefore, is to accept the injury which you have received, and to put the whole matter into God's hands. Do not pity yourself. Do not allow yourself to yield to any weakness. Thank God that the disclosure came before you were married, and not after. Ask God to take the whole matter into his hands and to bring out of it blessing and good in his own way. Then go quietly forward in your own duty, with cheerfulness and gladness, trusting everything with God.
The goal of Christian life, is not to avoid troubles, disappointments, sorrows, injuries — but in all these experiences to keep free from hurt and stain. This trouble cannot do you any harm. It must not make you a less brave and beautiful woman. It must not affect your health. It must not make you a sad-hearted girl. You must come out of it still more cheerful and happy, true and strong as ever, more unselfish and sympathetic than ever before. You must give yourself to Christ now for whatever service he has in mind for you to do.
You were planning for a wedded life of happiness and brightness and beauty. If, for the present, this is denied to you, accept whatever comes in its place as better still than that would have been. Be a still more cheerful, happy, and songful woman than ever you have been before. Am I giving you a hard task? I am giving you just the task that Christ, your Master, would give you if he were talking to you. May God bless you.
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