June 7
Daily Gleanings of the Saintly LifeFriday of the Second Week after Easter
The hairs of your head are all numbered. S. Matthew 10:30.
OUR Lord teaches us as to those very little things in order that we may know and feel that nothing is too little to be ordered by our Father, nothing too little in which to see His Hand, nothing which touches our souls too little to accept from Him, nothing too little to be done to Him. Every secret sigh He hears at once from every bosom in His whole creation. Every secret wish or prayer He hears while yet unuttered or unformed. He Who is in the highest heaven, and filleth all things, but is contained by none, He is present to each single heart, and hears, and if the heart form its wish to Him, He hearkens. This then is the first great ground of patience, that God is our Father, All-wise, All-loving, All-good; that "He can do what is best for our souls," while "we poor beings neither know nor care, nor, as we ought, will it." He knows not only every illness which in His good Providence He sends, but every ache or pain of it. He knows our every want in every day, and whether we shall look to Him in it or no. He knows every cross which befalls us. Mankind and each several human being, with all their sins, negligences, ignorances, work out through their own ungoverned will exactly that measure of trial which God in His infinite wisdom knows to be best for the perfecting of those who love Him, or for the chastening of those who may be turned to love Him.
My times are in Thy Hand, Whatever they may be, Pleasing or painful, dark or bright, As best may seem to Thee.