...thank God, we have a Savior...

Today i share a poem and story from Amy Carmichael's book, "Rose from Brier."

"...We need a friend, and above all a Savior, in the depths of our being--and, thank God, we have one." --Lady Victoria Buxton

How very thankful I am for this, today especially as we remember His death and resurrection.  If He were not our risen Savior, what hope would there be?  Thank God, He lives.

The following is taken directly from "Rose From Brier, a portion of the chapter titled, "As We Have Borne."

Do we not hear Thy footfall, O Beloved,
Among the stars on many a moonless night?
Do we not catch the whisper of Thy coming  
On winds of dawn, and often in the light
Of noontide and of sunset almost see Thee
Look up through shining air
And long to see Thee O Beloved, long to see Thee
And wonder that Thou art not standing there?

And we shall hear Thy footfall, O Beloved,
And starry ways will open, and the night
Will call her candles from their distant stations  
And winds shall sing Thee, noon, and mingled light
Of rose-red evening thrill with lovely welcome;
And we, caught up in air,
Shall see Thee, O Beloved, we shall see Thee,  
In hush of adoration see Thee there.

...And till that good time comes?  There is one thing we can always do.  We can find the incense trees that grow in our hottest places.  We can offer Him our hearts' adoration.
Among the joys of these months have been the books sent by friends...the first of this company of book-friends was the gallant and beautiful Lady Victoria Buxton.  She found her incense trees.

She was struck down suddenly, a lovely young wife and mother, in February 1869, and held fast by "searching and exhausting pain" till July 1916.  Forty seven years of pain.  And yet her life was one of valorous patience, forgetfulness of self, service to others; and such a sense of light was about her that after she had passed a daughter could write:


"Was she helpless, always in pain, bound wearily to couch and chair?  If it was so, it is not suffering and sadness that speak of her.  Rather it is the beauty of sunshine and roses, the shimmer on the river, the blue haze on the summer sea.  These things speak of her, not those others."

And a friend wrote:

"An hour spent in her quiet sitting-room was enough to give one an entirely new view of illness and its possibilities.  There were, indeed, the outward signs of an invalid's condition--the "prone-couch," the sofa, the walking sticks always at hand, the little meal brought in on a tray at 5 o'clock.  There were visible in the worn face and attenuated frame--even more touchingly in the fading eyes--the unmistakable evidences of long continued suffering.  But all this was only, as it were, the setting of the picture--the central figure was a spiritual presence, which bodily pain and lassitude were powerless to affect."
 
But hers was not a cheaply won victory of spirit over flesh.  This is from her private papers:

"Things do not improve, and use is not a "second nature," and all seems increasingly hard sometimes, and I am rather hopeless of getting better...What should I do without Him, in life or death?  The inner loneliness would be awful, in spite of all that human affection could do for me.  We need a friend, above all a Savior, in the depths of our being--and thank God, we have one."
 
And so she loved, served, shone, was more than conqueror.  And fortified and comforted for those forty seven years, a very St. John in her day and generation, she gave to all who saw her an entirely new view of sickness and its possibilities.