The Lord is seeking to teach my husband to have a spirit of forgiveness, and forgetfulness of the dark passages in his experience. The remembrance of the unpleasant past only saddens the present, and he lives over again the unpleasant portion of his life's history. In so doing he is clinging to the darkness and is pressing the thorn deeper into his spirit. This is my husband's infirmity, and it is displeasing to God. This brings darkness and not light. He may feel apparent relief for the time in expressing his feelings; but it only makes more acute the sense of how great his sufferings and trials have been, until the whole becomes magnified in his imagination, and the errors of his brethren, who have aided in bringing these trials upon him, look so grievous that their wrongs seem to him past endurance.
My husband has cherished this darkness so long by living over the unhappy past that he has but little power to control his mind when dwelling upon these things. Circumstances and events which once he would not have minded, magnify before him into grievous wrongs on the part of his brethren. He has become so sensitive to the wrongs under which he has suffered that it is necessary that he should be as little as possible in the vicinity of Battle Creek, where many of the unpleasant circumstances occurred. God will heal his wounded spirit, if he will let Him. But in doing this, he will have to bury the past. He should not talk of it, or write of it.
It is positively displeasing to God for my husband to recount his difficulties and his peculiar grievances of the past. If he had looked upon these things in the light that they were not done to him, but to the Lord, whose instrument he is, then he would have received a great reward. But he has taken the murmurings of his brethren as though done to himself and has felt called upon to make all understand the wrong and wickedness of thus complaining of him when he did not deserve their censure and abuse.
Had my husband felt that he could leave this matter all with the Lord, and that their murmurings and their neglect were against the Master instead of the servant in the Master's service, he would not have felt so aggrieved, and it would not have hurt him. He should have left it with the Lord, whose servant he is, to fight his battles for him and vindicate his cause. Then he would have finally received a precious reward for all his sufferings for Christ's sake.
I saw that my husband should not dwell upon the painful
facts in our experience. Neither should he write his grievances, but keep
as far from them as he can. The Lord will heal the wounds of the past if
he will turn his attention away from them. "For our light affliction,
which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal
weight of glory; while we look not at the things which are seen, but at
the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal;
but the things which are not seen are eternal." When confessions are made
by his brethren who have been wrong, he should accept the confessions and
generously, nobly, seek to encourage those who have been deceived by the
enemy. He should cultivate a forgiving spirit and should not dwell upon
the mistakes and errors of others, for in so doing he not only weakens
his own soul, but tortures the minds of his brethren who have erred, when
they may have done all that they can do by confession to correct their
past errors. If God sees it necessary that any portion of their past
course should be presented before them, that they may understand how to
shun errors in future, He will do this work; but my husband should not
trust himself to do it, for it awakens past scenes of suffering that the
Lord would have him forget.
