Why go I mourning?" (Psalm 42:9).
Canst thou answer this, believer? Canst thou find any reason why thou art so often mourning instead of rejoicing? Why yield to gloomy anticipations? Who told thee that the night would never end in day? Who told thee that the winter of thy discontent would proceed from frost to frost, from snow and ice, and hail, to deeper snow, and yet more heavy tempest of despair? Knowest thou not that day follows night, that flood comes after ebb, that spring and summer succeed winter? Hope thou then! Hope thou ever! for God fails thee not. --C. H. Spurgeon
He was better to me than all my hopes
He was better than all my fears
He made a bridge of my broken works
And a rainbow of my tears.
The billows that guarded rny sea-girt path
But carried my Lord on their crest
When I dwell on the days of my wilderness march
I can lean on His love for the rest.
He emptied my hands of my treasured store
And His covenant love revealed
There zoos not at wound in my aching heart
But the balm of His breath hath healed.
Oh, tender and true was the chastening sore
In wisdom, that taught and tried
Till the soul that He sought was trusting in Him
And nothing on earth beside.
He guided by paths that I could not see
By ways that I have not known
The crooked was straight, and the rough was plain
As I followed the Lord alone.
I praise Him still for the pleasant palms
And the water-springs by the way
For the glowing pillar of flame by night
And the sheltering cloud by day.
Never a watch on the dreariest halt
But some promise of love endears
I read from the past, that my future shall be
Far better than all my fears.
Like the golden pot, of the wilderness bread
Laid up with the blossoming rod
All safe in the ark, with the law of the Lord
Is the covenant care of my God.