She told me that the affliction of their child was a means of drawing their hearts closer to the Lord, and of enabling her to experience the sweet rest of being fully submitted to God, whereby she was afterwards able to teach others the way.
Just before this she had been urging a bereaved friend, who was grieving too much over the loss of her father, to become resigned to the will of God. Her friend said, "You can not appreciate my loss, for you have never suffered such a loss." She saw the force of her friend's remark and said no more. But when the affliction came upon her child and she was called upon to become resigned to the will of God, she came to know not only that it is possible to be resigned but that there is a great consolation in being submissive. When her friend afterwards came to know of her submission, she was very much affected.
Both my friend and her husband feel that God has given them their child from the grave, and their testimony is that through this severe ordeal they have come to love their Savior more.
The Conversion of My Father
EXPERIENCE NUMBER 20
The most precious experience in my life, I believe, next to my own conversion, was the salvation of my own dear father, for whom I had prayed a year and a half. He joined the Baptist denomination when only a young man, but, not having the real witness of sins forgiven, never felt satisfied with his Christian experience, or rather his profession. A few years later, feeling that he would be acting a hypocrite to go on in that condition, he even dropped his profession.
Eighteen or twenty years ago he attended a revival held by the United Brethren people and began to seek God. Night after night he went forward for prayer, but for lack of proper instruction, failed to find the peace he so earnestly sought.