It seems easy to trust when all is bright, but really it is just as
hard, only we can more easily deceive ourselves, when physical
well-being makes us comfortable. We are less conscious of our own
emptiness, we mask our poverty from ourselves, we do not seem to need
God so much. But sorrow reveals our need to us. Other props are struck
away, and it is either collapse or Him. We learn the vanity, the
transiency, of all besides.
Sorrow reveals God, as the pillar of cloud glowed brighter when the
evening fell. Sorrow is meant to awaken the powers that are apt to
sleep in prosperity.
So the true voice of all our griefs is 'Come up hither.' They call us
to trust, as nightfall calls us to light up our lamps. The snow keeps
the hidden seeds warm; shepherds burn heather on the hillside that
young grass may spring.