The Greatest Misfortune of All Is Not to Be Able to Bear Misfortune
Heaven in its mercy has placed the fountain of wisdom in the hidden and concealed depths of the soul, that the children of misfortune might seek and find in its healthful waters the antidote and cordial of their cares. Knowledge and sorrow are blended together, just as ignorance and folly.
Man is like a sword in a shop window. Men that look upon the perfect blade do not dream of the process by which it was completed. Man is a sword; daily life is the workshop and God is the artificer, and the trials and sorrows of life the very things that fashion the man. When borne down by trials they are sent only for instructions.
In youth we look forward, the future appears calm as we approach manhood and womanhood life changes its appearance and becomes tempestuous and rough, as the ocean changes before the storm. In the changes of life real joy and grief are never far apart.
Trials come in a thousand different forms and many avenues are open to their approach. They come with the warm throbbing of our youthful lives, keep pace with the measured tread of manhood’s noon, and depart not from the descending footsteps of decrepitude age. We may not hope to be entirely free from either disciplinary trials or the fiery darts of the enemy until we are through with life’s burdens. Men may be so old that ambition has no chain, but they are never too old to experience trials. Misfortune gathers around great men as storms do around great mountains, but, like them, they break the storms and purify the air. Those who have had misfortune are like those who know many languages. They have learned to understand and be understood by all. Time is the rider that breaks youth. To the young how bright the world looks—how full of novelty and enjoyment. But as years pass on they are found to abound in sorrowful scenes as well as those pleasant scenes of toil, suffering, difficulty and perhaps misfortune and failure. Happy are they who can pass through misfortune with a firm mind and a pure heart, encountering trials with cheerfulness and standing erect beneath even the heaviest burdens.
Misfortune is a crown of thorns, but it becomes a wreath of light on the brow which it has lacerated. Oh, it is a cross on which the spirit groans. Let us learn to be able to bear our misfortune, because every Calvary has an Olivet. To every place of crucifixion there is likewise a place of ascension. So to be successful in this life we must be able to bear misfortunes.