The Sounds of Joy

"It's a well-known fact that the wife of preacher C.H. Spurgeon, Susannah Spurgeon, suffered from physical disabilities that grew progressively worse year by year. Finally she reached the point where she could no longer make the transatlantic journey with her husband by ship. Then, not only did she have to endure her painful affliction, but she also had to deal with Dr. Spurgeon's absence for six to nine months at a time. Read here what she wrote one dark, cold, lonely evening when she was sitting alone (it seemed she was always alone now) beside her fire:

The fire was letting loose the imprisoned music
from the old oak's inmost heart. [As] the fierce
tongues of the flames came to consume [the log's
hardened] callousness...the fire wrung from him a
song and a sacrifice.

Oh! Thought I, when the fire of affliction draws
songs of praise from us, then indeed...our God is
glorified!...We [would] give forth no melodious
sounds were it not for the fire which kindles round
us and releases tender notes of trust in Him...
Singing in the fire!...Let the furnace be heated
seven times hotter than before! "



-Elizabeth George, A Woman's Walk with God, Growing in the Fruit of the Spirit, pg. 51-52-