But what inexpressible joy for me, as I sit at my embroidery in the garden, to look up through the apple-blossoms and the fluttering leaves, and to see God's love there;—to listen to the thrush that has built his nest among them, and feel God's love, who cares for the birds, in every note that swells his little throat;—to look beyond to the bright blue depths of the sky, and feel they are a canopy of blessing—the roof of the house of my Father; that if clouds pass over, it is the unchangeable light they veil; that, even when the day itself passes, I shall see that the night itself only unveils new worlds of light; and to know that if I could unwrap fold after fold of God's universe, I should only unfold more and more blessing, and see deeper and deeper into the love which is at the heart of all!
And then what joy again to turn to my embroidery, and, as my fingers busily ply the needle, to think—
"This is to help my father and mother; this, even this, is a little work of love. And as I sit and stitch, God is pleased with me, and with what I am doing. He gives me this to do, as much as he gives the priests to pray, and Dr. Luther to preach. I am serving Him, and he is near me in my little corner of the world, and is pleased with me—even with me!"
Oh, Fritz and Eva! if you had both known this, need you have left us to go and serve God so far away?
Have I indeed, like St. Christopher, found my bank of the river, where I can serve my Saviour by helping all the pilgrims I can?
Better, better than St. Christopher; for do I not know the voice that calls to me—
"Elsè! Elsè! do this for me?"
And now I do not feel at all afraid to grow old, which is a great relief, as I am already six-and-twenty, and the children think me nearly as old as our mother. For what is growing old, if Dr. Martin Luther is indeed right (and I am sure he is), but growing daily nearer God, and His holy, happy home! Dr. Luther says our Saviour called heaven his Father's house.
Not that I wish to leave this world. While God wills we should stay here, and is with us, is it not home-like enough for us?
May, 1513.