His gracious presence

   *Not long ago a young woman at a retreat told a long tale of how she had come to know the Lord, had rebelled against Him and gone far afield, had been brought back, rebelled again, and then in mercy and grace the Lord had forgiven her, given her a Christian husband and happiness.  He was a highway patrolman, and one day, attending a traffic accident, he was struck by a passing car and critically injured.  Gwenn herself was in bed at the time, with a threatened miscarriage.  Three days later he died.  That same afternoon her father died, and in six more days she lost her baby.  She told her story quietly, without tears, although nearly everyone else was weeping.  She finished by saying that she found, by her husband’s deathbed, what she had sought for so long—the gracious presence of Christ Himself.

   In a letter to me she wrote:

    About a week after the retreat my phone rang.  It was the wife of the man who hit my husband.  She said she had to call because her sister-in-law had just called her, having come home from a Bible study where a woman shared some of what I said that morning at the retreat.  She literally pleaded with me, if ever the inclination were there, to somehow communicate to her husband the things I had said, because he is so guilt ridden and unable to forgive himself.  When I hung up the phone, I was shaking and ran in and fell beside my bed and cried my heart out, knowing, I guess, that such a thing can only be accomplished by God within me--for it's like being stretched far beyond who I am.  To hold onto my pain, despising its source, is far easier because it's far more natural.  But as a friend said, my forgiving him and expressing that forgiveness directly via a letter or visit could very possibly hold the key, the only key, that can release him from his prison. . . . And it just very well could be the one area I have not dealt with that could result in the completion of healing within me.  My friend pointed out that, as a child of God, I really have no choice.  The nagging question, "Why, God, is it required of me to forgive so much?" needs not be answered. . . . Praise God for His amazing grace that takes us where we never thought we could go!

 * excerpt taken from "Discipline: The Glad Surrender" by Elisabeth Elliot, pages 150-151

A Tea Against Suffering

I looked out at the silent congregation. It was, for a moment, as if I were back in my church during the war on the day when the Iron Guard bullies filed in with their guns. Menace was around us, not only in the place where Rugojanu was taking notes.

I continued, “Don’t let suffering take you by surprise! Meditate on it often. Take the virtues of Christ and His saints into your life. The pastor I spoke of, my teacher who died for his faith, gave me a recipe for a tea against suffering, and I will give it to you.”

I told them the story of a doctor of early Christian times who was unjustly imprisoned by the emperor. After some weeks his family was allowed to see him, and at first they wept. His clothes were rags, his nourishment a slice of bread with a cup of water every day. His wife wondered and asked, “How is it that you look so well? You have the air of one who has just come from a wedding!” The doctor smilingly replied that he found a remedy for all troubles, and his family asked him what it was. The doctor told them, “I have discovered a tea that is good against all suffering and sorrow. It contains seven herbs, and I shall number them for you.”

“The first herb is called contentedness: be satisfied with what you have. I may shiver in my rags as I gnaw on a crust, but how much worse off I should be if the emperor had thrown me naked into a dungeon with nothing at all to eat!

“The second herb is common sense. Whether I rejoice or worry, I shall still be in prison, so why fret?

“The third is remembrance of past sins: count them, and on the supposition that every sin deserves a day in prison, reckon how many lives you would spend behind bars—you have been let off lightly!

“The fourth is the thought of the sorrows that Christ bore gladly for us. If the only Man who ever could choose His fate on earth chose pain, what great value He must have seen in it! So we observe that, borne with serenity and joy, suffering redeems.

“The fifth herb is the knowledge that suffering has been given to us by God as from a father, not to harm us, but to cleanse and sanctify us. The suffering through which we pass has the purpose of purifying us and preparing us for heaven.

“The sixth is the knowledge that no suffering can harm a Christian life. If the pleasures of the flesh are all, then pain and prison bring an end to a man’s aim in living; but if the core of life is truth, that is something which no prison cell can change. In prison or out of it two and two make four. Prison cannot stop me from loving; iron bars cannot exclude faith. If these ideals make up my life, I can be serene anywhere.

“The last herb in the recipe is hope. The wheel of life may put the emperor’s physician in prison, but it goes on turning. It may put me back into the palace, and even put me on the throne.”

I paused for a moment. The crowded church was still.

“I have drunk barrels of this tea since then,” I said, “and I can recommend it to you all. It has proved good.”
* excerpt taken from "In God's Underground" by Richard Wurmbrand, pages 194-195