The Children For Christ by Andrew Murray

But oh, the desolation that meantime fills the heart and the sense of
utter feebleness and unfitness to fulfill my charge with these boys, these
girls, who still live, and who do so need a father’s wise, firm, loving rule.
Dear mother! when Jesus says, Weep not, He never speaks without
doing; He gives what can dry the tears. What think you? if Jesus were to
take the place of the father to these children, would not this make you
smile and sing even through the tears. If, as a living reality, Jesus would
undertake the responsibility of educating those children, of being your
Adviser and your Strength and your assurance of success in your work,
would this not be enough to stay those tears? And just this is what He
comes to do. What God spoke of old, `Leave thy orphans to me, and let
thy widows trust in me;’ `The Lord upholds the fatherless and the
widow,’ Jesus comes in human tenderness, and in the nearness of the
Holy Spirit, to fulfill. You may trust your fatherless children to Him; He
will preserve them; He will, in a Divine fulness and power of meaning,
be the father of the fatherless.
It may be that a widowed mother reads these words, to whom they have
but little meaning. Though a Christian, she has so little yet learned to
live by faith, to count the unseen things of faith surer and clearer than
the things of sight, that the promise appears all vague and distant. She
hardly dares hope that it ever will become a reality, that she may be
quite sure that Jesus will do it for her. She does not feel as if she is good
or holy or believing enough, that her children should receive such a
wonderfully special and Divine guidance.
My sister! would you learn what Jesus would have of you, that you may
with confidence depend upon your children being preserved and
blessed by Him, and your tears pass away in the sunlight of His love and
care, come and listen. Of a widow He asks but one thing — ‘Let thy
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