Someone recently asked my husband, “What’s the hardest part about having a large family? The fourteen bikes in your shed?” Kris’s ready reply was this: “Actually, the hardest part about parenting is that every child is so different from the other. Just when you think you have it figured out, you get another one, and he or she acts and reacts totally differently than your other ones.” It’s true, and it is one of the most humbling aspects of parenting that we are facing, particularly as we are approaching having two in their twenties. We’ve decided that as difficult as parenting can be with our younger children, it’s the 18-22 year-olds that humble us and bring us to our knees in prayer the most. We have been facing some real challenges with one child lately. Approach twenty years of age, making one’s own decisions is right, and yet we are certain that those decisions are not God’s best for that child’s life. So what do you do when you see your child making choices that will impact his eternity, but no amount of prayer, encouragement, conversation, Bible study, and more prayer seem to be changing those choices?

A friend who is aware of some of the concerns we have for our child shared a sweet quotation with us. It is apparently from Charles Spurgeon’s Beside Still Waters, but I couldn’t confirm that completely. Elements of the quotation appear in another of his sermons called, “Consolation for the Despairing,” so I am at least confident that it is a Charles Spurgeon quotation. Anyway, here it is. I hope it is as much of an encouragement to you as it has been to us.

When your faith endures many conflicts, and your spirit sinks low, do not condemn yourself. There is a reason for your season of heaviness. Great soldiers are not made without war. Skillful sailors are not trained on the shore. It appears that if you are to become a great believer, you will be greatly tested. If you are to be a great help to others, you must pass through their trials. If you are to be instructed in the things of the kingdom, you must learn from experience. The uncut diamond has little brilliance, and the unthreshed corn feeds no one, and the untried believer is of little use or beauty. There are GREAT BENEFITS to come from your trials and depression. The one who is much plowed and often harrowed will thank God if the result is a larger harvest to the praise and glory of God by Jesus Christ. If your face is now covered with sorrow, the time will come when you will bless God for that sorrow. The day will come when you will see great gain from your losses, your crosses, your troubles and your affliction. From your affliction this glory shall spring, and the deeper your sorrow the louder you'll sing.

The deeper your sorrow the louder you’ll sing. I’m singing like an opera singer, then, this week. And may it ultimately all be to God’s glory!

The Deeper the Sorrow the Louder You’ll Sing

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