I didn’t want to go to visit the sick old lady! With all my own worry and trouble, how could I cheer and encourage her? Finally I yielded, although reluctantly, and promised to go. And wasn’t she a surprise to me! Old and sick and poor, who would expect her to be a cheer to me?
I found her very clear mentally, though she told me she was beyond 90 years of age. Happily she went on to tell me that she came to the Lord Jesus Christ when young, “and oh! it is still fresh in my heart, the rapture I felt when first I responded to my Saviour’s love.”
She went on, “I cannot tell you how sweet it has been all my life to go on in the assurance that His love abides when everything else fails. I have had much trouble and sorrow, but He has not for a moment failed me, and I am sure He will not now.”
I asked her how long she had known the Lord.
She said, “Only seventy-three years.”
“And you have never gotten tired of the joy that you found in knowing Him?”
“Never!” she replied. “He becomes more precious to me every day I live.” Clasping her hands together, she looked up and exclaimed, “And oh! I don’t know now whatever I should do without Him!”
How very comforted I felt after that visit. As I walked home, I thought that if the knowledge and assurance of the love of Christ my Saviour can sustain a woman all those many years, no one should allow doubts and misgivings to enter their heart.
What an answer she was to those who say that the heart soon gets tired of these “old fashioned” things. For seventy-three long years she had lived in company with her Lord, her enjoyment of His love increasing as time went on, and she proved that He was true to His promise never to leave nor forsake.
What a sad mistake people make in supposing that if they turn to the Lord Jesus Christ they must give up all joy in life. Why, if you do not know Him and His love is nothing to you, you do not know what real joy is!