By Heyman Wreford.
A Text Speaking From The Wall.
ONE afternoon, while resting in a room in the house of a friend with whom I had been staying, such a wave of sorrowful depression passed across my soul as almost overwhelmed me. I had been called upon to pass through great trials and afflictions. A great sense of loneliness came over me — the world seemed a desert, and a vast solitude with no voice to cheer, or any presence to relieve the terrible isolation. The loss of my beloved wife a few months ago had shaken my life to its very foundations. Had it not been for a power beyond myself sustaining me through those days and nights of grief, I must have succumbed. The devil came and brought a flood of memories with him. He raised a storm of retrospect about me, that, recollecting all my sorrows and enumerating them, I could find no solace for my soul, and felt that it were better for me to die. The future, with its uncertainties, seemed hard to face. A long list it was of insoluble problems of life under altered conditions and uncertainties that were pressing hard for a solution. The skies of life grew black with a tempest akin to despair. I said to God: “I am oppressed; help me.” “No man cared for my soul.” Feeling the strife more than could be borne alone, I went upstairs to my bedroom to pray. In the act of going into the upstairs room, I was suddenly arrested just inside the door, and a voice seemed to say, “Look to the wall.” I looked, and saw a text I had never noticed to my knowledge before. It riveted my attention now. The words of the text were, “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee,” I stood in silence facing the text―it seemed as if it had found a voice, and that God had spoken to me. As I stood a great sense of the love of God to me passed across my soul. The tears rained down my face, and I cried: “Oh! my God, I thank Thee — I thank Thee. Thou halt spoken to me.”
The wonder of it all appealed to me very strongly. The God of all the ages, who knew the wants and wishes, and hopes and fears of the millions upon millions of the human race, had seen my tears, and heard my cries, and knew all the needs of my sorrowful heart. Yes, He thought of me, and sent me His message, as if I were the only one He had to care for.
That text had hung upon that wall, covered by the door as I entered the room two or three times a day, for a long time. I had not consciously noticed it, and should not have remembered it was there. It was put there to be the voice. of God to me in all my distress and loneliness.
What a lesson we can learn of God’s loving care from this simple narrative. I trust my readers in their hours of trial and difficulty, may find Him all-sufficient to help in every time of need. “He knoweth our frame, He remembereth that we are dust.” He deals with us in infinite patience, and with ceaseless love. He bears with our lack of faith and trust, and never tires in the ceaseless activities of everlasting love.
We close the year with a great note of praise. It has been the most sorrowful year I have ever had. It has been one of the most abundant years of blessing we have ever known. A time of suffering for my beloved wife until June 17th when she went to be with Christ. A time of heart-searching before God for me. Never shall I forget my wife’s quiet wish and prayer expressed to me when I sat by her side, not long before she left me. She said: “I should like to feel that my sufferings (and she suffered much) would be for the blessing of others.” Her wish and prayer have been answered indeed. I am learning deep lessons for myself since “the desire of my eyes” has been taken from me. God has revealed Himself to me as the God of all comfort. I have His promises, and He is faithful. He will never leave me nor forsaken me. I do want my closing days on earth to be “for the blessing of others.” The earthly fellowship of forty years with my dear wife in the things of Christ is over now, but the blessing for others will go on I know until we meet again. I have had abundant proof of that, in the love and sympathy of the saints of God. So my closing words to my dear friends is one of boundless gratitude to them for all their loving thoughts of me. I have not been able to answer many of the wonderful letters I have had, and I ask for your tolerance and forgiveness for that.
I shall never forget on earth, and God will always remember in heaven what you have done to help on His work. Now we have come to the last month of the year, and the forty-eighth Volume of “A Message from God” is finished, we say:
How good is the God we adore,
Our faithful, unchangeable Friend;
Whose love is as great as His power,
And knows neither measure nor end!
‘Tis Jesus, the First and the Last,
Whose Spirit shall guide us safe home;
We praise Him for all that is past,
And trust Him for all that’s to come.
L. Hart, 1712-88.
P.S. —I am much better in health in answer to prayer, and God I trust will give me all I need to continue to edit “A Message from God” through 1933, or until He comes.