When we look at our bereavements in this light, and think of what death
means to our beloved ones who have been taken from us, we find new
comfort in the thought of their immortality, their release from
suffering and temptation, and their full blessedness with Christ. It
is selfish for us to forget this in the absorption of our own grief.
Should we not be willing to endure loss and pain that those dear to us
may receive gain and blessing?
Even in life's relationships on the earth we are continually taught the
same lesson. Parents must give up their children, losing them out of
the home nest, that they may go forth into the world to take up life's
duties for themselves. Then also the separation is painful, but it is
borne in the sweet silence of self-denying love. We give up our
friends when they are called from our side to accept other and higher
places. Life is full of such separations, and we are taught that it is
our duty to think of others, bearing our own loss in patience for their
sake. Does not the same law of love "that seeketh not its own" apply
when our beloved ones are called up higher?
Of lessons to be learned in sorrow the first always is submission. We
are told even of our Lord that he "learned obedience by the things
which he suffered." This is life's great, all-inclusive lesson. When
we have learned this fully, perfectly, the work of sanctification in us
is complete.
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