'And does He always call when He sends pain, father?'
'It has so large a place in God's economy, my darling, that we may find in it another Sacrament. When the Great High Priest gives the bread of tears, the wine of separation, there is, in these visible things, His inward call to come closer to Himself. Oh, little daughter, when you can find His love in nothing else, look at Calvary, for there the perfect Saviour deigned to stoop to a last service—"Love's epitome."'
And so I 'looked' at Him upon His cross, as daddy bade me, and realised for the first time that as God's justice has been satisfied, there is nothing left but His love for me.
I saw, all in a moment, that if God loved me enough to give His Son, and if His Son loved me enough to give His life, He will not keep back any other gift. He is all love, so all He sends to me is Love. He cannot help Himself.
I am all broken up to think that I so nearly missed a gift of love because He sent it veiled to me in pain.
Out in the Hickley Woods I found Him. Down the paths of my life I suddenly saw the way of His feet, and my soul rushed out to meet Him.
At last I know the lesson that Ross learned by pain. I see what Charlie saw only when he was blind. I understand what father has known since mother died. Oh, the wonder and the utter perfection of this 'experience.' It links me up with all the others down the centuries who having found Him 'in a mist of tears' can glory in their pain. If only I could pass the lovely comfort of it on to some of those whose hearts are wounded, as mine is, inexpressibly and beyond all telling, by this awful war:—
He only takes away the ones we love if, in His all wise love, He sees He must. If we accept the atonement that He made, and love Him, and are dutiful to Him about the ones He takes. He will always give instead that incomparably more lovely, priceless, perfect, altogether lovely one—Himself.
And now this funny old book is finished. As I write the words my room grows dark, because the sun is hidden for a moment by a cloud of rain. Yet all the tender plants out in the woods will be the stronger for the storm, when it has passed.
I look into the future, and I see that there remains for me one last 'experience.'