| The Every Day of Life |
Chapter 11 |
Page 7 |
Thus all along our earthly life we are shut in with God, as it were, in little places. We must live a day at a time. The mornings are little hilltops from which we can look down into the narrow valley of one little day. What lies over the next hill we cannot tell? Perhaps when we come to it, it may reveal to us a lovely garden through which our path shall go on. Or it may show us a vale of shadows, or a path amid briers. No matter: – we have but the one little valley of the day now in sight. Evening is our horizon. Here in this one little day’s enclosure we can rest as in a refuge. To-morrow’s storms and cares cannot touch us.
We should be thankful that life comes to us in such little bits. We can live one day well enough. We can do one day’s duties. We can endure one day’s sorrows. It is a blessing that this is all God ever gives us at this time. We should be thankful for the nights that cut off from our view our to-morrows, so that we cannot even see them till the dawn. The little days, nestling between the nights, like quiet vales between the hills, seem so safe and peaceful.
“I thank thee, Lord, that thou dost lay
These near horizons on my way.
If I could all my journey see,
There were no chances of mystery,
No veiled grief, no changes sweet,
No restful sense of tasks complete.
I thank thee for the hills, the night,
For every barrier to my sight,
For every turn that blinds my eyes
To coming pain or glad surprise;
For every bound thou settest nigh
To make me look more near, more high;
For mysteries too great to know,
For everything thou dost not show;
Upon my limits rests my heart;
Its safe horizon, Lord, thou art.”
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