For those who have ears to hear...
Some years ago the wife of a murdered missionary in China told me of the blank amazed agony of those days -- "We did not feel, we did not pray, we were dazed with sorrow." She was shown a lock of her little child's golden hair, and told that both husband and child had been discovered murdered, beheaded and naked in a godless Chinese town. Shattered and undone, the widow returned with the little ones spared to her to Britain. She did not doubt God, but -- "He did not answer prayer." "Oh, how many prayed for my husband, good and valued servant of God, but all to no avail." In those days of dull dreary reaction the people who nearly drove her wild with distress were those who knew chapter and verse, the "why" and "wherefore" of her suffering and grief. She said, "I used to beat a tattoo on the floor with my foot while they chattered, crying in my heart "How long, O Lord, how long?" One day as she lay prostrate on the sofa the old minister who had known her husband in the glad other days, entered the room softly, he did not speak but came gently over to her and kissed her on the forehead and went out without saying a word. "From that moment," she said, "my heart began to heal."
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