A VERY aged Christian lady, in reduced circumstances, was suffering much weakness in her solitary room at the close of the winter, and as the New Year approached she was sad and oppressed.
For many years she had sought and received a New Year’s text from the Lord, and now, once more, the dear aged pilgrim lifted up her heart to her faithful God, who had been her stay so many years in her widowhood and poverty.
As she committed herself into His hands ere she fell asleep, she breathed out this simple, childlike prayer: “Give me, dear Lord, a word from Thyself to comfort me in the New Year.”
The first thought that came into her mind as she woke early on New Year’s Day was a couplet from one of her favorite hymns: ―
“If Jesus once upon me shine,
Then Jesus is forever mine,”
This cheered her spirit, and she whispered: “Dear Lord, since Thou art mine, give me a word from Thyself to comfort me,” and immediately the words came to her: “Run with patience the race set before thee, looking unto Jesus” all the way, “for the eyes of the Lord are always upon it, from the beginning of the year even unto the end of the year.” (Heb. 12:1, 2,1Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, 2Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. (Hebrews 12:1‑2) and Deut. 11:1212A land which the Lord thy God careth for: the eyes of the Lord thy God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year even unto the end of the year. (Deuteronomy 11:12).)
The aged pilgrim arose, cheered and encouraged in her God, to enter the 91St year of her pilgrimage; and when her friends came to see her, she was delighted to tell them of the Lord’s goodness to her, saying, after she had ended her little story, “There now! Must not that have been the Holy Ghost who brought these texts to my mind? I am sure I never could have thought of them thyself; and you know it was the very word I needed, for I longed so to go Home last month, and the Lord has just told me to run with patience the rate He has set before me.”
Need we add that, when her time came to cross Jordan, she went over dry-shod, magnifying her God and Saviour?
R.