Fortitude In Affliction
103
My heart goes out to Jesus in loving trust. He knows what is best
for me. My nights would be lonely did I not claim the promise, “Call
upon Me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify
Me” (
Psalm 50:15
).—
Manuscript 19, 1892
.
Lessons From The Months Of Suffering
I have been passing through great trial in pain and suffering and
helplessness, but through it all I have obtained a precious experience
more valuable to me than gold. When I was first convinced that I
must give up my cherished plans to visit the churches in Australia and
New Zealand, I felt to seriously question whether it was my duty to
leave America and come to this far-off country. My sufferings were
acute. Many sleepless hours of the nights I spent in going over and
over our experience since we left Europe for America, and it has been
a continual scene of anxiety, suffering, and burden bearing. Then I
said, What does it all mean?
I carefully reviewed the history of the past few years and the work
the Lord gave me to do. Not once did He fail me, and often He
manifested Himself to me in a marked manner, and I saw I had nothing
of which to complain, but instead precious things running like threads
of gold through all my experience. The Lord understood better than I
the things that I needed, and I felt that He was drawing me very nigh
to Himself, and I must be careful not to dictate to God as to what He
should do with me. This unreconciliation was at the beginning of my
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sufferings and helplessness, but it was not long until I felt that my
affliction was a part of God’s plan. I found that by partly lying and
partly sitting I could place myself in position to use my crippled hands,
and although suffering much pain I could do considerable writing.
Since coming to this country I have written sixteen hundred pages of
paper of this size.
Many nights during the past nine months I was enabled to sleep
but two hours a night, and then at times darkness would gather about
me; but I prayed, and realized much sweet comfort in drawing nigh to
God. The promises, “Draw nigh to God, and He will draw nigh to you”
(
James 4:8
), “When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit
of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him” (
Isaiah 59:19
), were
fulfilled to me. I was all light in the Lord. Jesus was sacredly near,