| The Every Day of Life |
Chapter 13 |
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To every one of us God gives something that he wants us to say to others. We cannot all write poems or hymns, or compose books which will bless men; but if we live near the heart of Christ, there is not one of us into whose ear he will not whisper some fragment of truth, some revealing of grace or love, or to whom he will not give some experience of comfort in sorrow, some new glimpse of glory. Each friend of Christ, living close to him, learns something from him and of him, which no one has learned before, which he is to forth-tell to the world.
Therefore, each one should speak out their own message. If it were only a single word, it will yet bless the earth. If only the flowers that bloom in summer days in the fields and gardens had refused to bloom, hiding its little gift of beauty, the world would be poorer and less lovely. If but on of the myriad stars in the heavens had refused to shine, keeping its little beam locked in its breast, the nights would be a little darker than they are. And every human life that fails to speak out, keeping it locked in the silence of the heart, leaves this earth a little poorer. But every life, even the lowliest, that learns of God and then speaks out its message, adds something to the world’s blessing and beauty.
We ought to speak out our heart’s gladness. There is something very strange in the tendency, which seems so common in human lives to hide the gladness and tell out the misery. Any one who will keep an account of what people he meets say to him. Will probably find that a large proportion of them will say little that is pleasant and happy and much that is dreary and sad. They will tell him of their bodily aches and pains and infirmities. They will complain bitterly of the heat if it is warm, or of the chill if it is cold. They will speak of the discouragements in their business, the hardships in their occupation, the troubles in their various duties, and all the manifold miseries, real or imagined, that have fallen to their lot. But thy will have very little to say of their prosperity’s, their health, their three good meals a day, their encouragement’s, favors, friendships, and manifold blessings.
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