The Children for Christ by Andrew Murray

eing a treasure to which her love now clings, at first only gives new
bitterness to the trial. It is not only the heart of man that is touched by
this thought: the heart of God too. Throughout Scripture, from the
repeated commands in the law of Moses down to James’s testimony that
pure religion teaches us to visit `the fatherless and widows’ in their
affliction, God never forgets the widow. `A Father of the fatherless, and
a Judge of the widows, is God in His holy habitation;’ `He upholds the
fatherless and the widow;’ `Leave thy fatherless children, I will preserve
them alive; and let thy widows trust in me’ (Ps. 68: 5, 146: 9; Jer. 49: 11):
Such words reveal to us the very heart of God.
And now, when Jesus came, how could He fail of showing in this too,
that He was the Father’s image, that God was in Christ. It is as if the
picture of the Master’s life would be incomplete without the story of
the widow of Nain. In what He said of the widow’s mite, we see how His
eye watches over a widow’s poverty, and values, what men would call,
her little deed of love. At Nain we see Him as the Comforter of widowed
motherhood. Let us go to Nain, the sacred spot to which so many a
widow has resorted to find in Jesus her Friend and Lord, to learn what
Jesus, the Friend and Savior of our children, has to say to a widow
weeping over her child. Not only when the tears are those of sorrow
over one taken away, but those of anxious love or sad distress at the
sight of those still left behind, Jesus meets us with His, Weep not.
Weep not, widowed mother, as you look at your little ones, and the
heart almost breaks at the thought of their being fatherless. Weep not,
but come, follow me, as we seek Him who has been anointed `to comfort
all that mourn.’ Weep not, as you tremble to think of how you are to
train and educate them all alone in your feebleness. Let your soul for a
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