Disappointment
Our yet unfinished story
Is tending all to this:
Our yet unfinished story
Is tending all to this:
To God the greatest glory,
To us the greatest bliss.
If all things work together
For ends so grand and blest,
What need to wonder whether
Each in itself is best!
If some things were omitted
Or altered as we would,
The whole might be unfitted
To work for perfect good.
Our plans may be disjointed,
But we may calmly rest:
What God has once appointed
Is better than our best.
We cannot see before us,
But our all-seeing Friend
Is always watching o’er us,
And knows the very end.
What though we seem to stumble,
He will not let us fall;
And learning to be humble
Is not lost time at all.
What though we fondly reckoned
A smoother way to go
Than where his hand has beckoned,
It will be better so.
What only seemed a barrier
A stepping-stone shall be;
Our God is no long tarrier,
A present help is He.
And when amid our blindness
His disappointments fall,
We trust His loving-kindness
Whose wisdom sends them all.
They are the purple fringes
That hide His glorious feet;
They are the fire-wrought hinges
Where truth and mercy meet;
By them the golden portal
of Providence shall ope,
And lift to praise immortal
The songs of faith and hope.
From broken alabaster
Was deathless fragrance shed,
The spikenard flowed the faster
Upon the Saviour’s head.
No shattered box of ointment
We ever need regret,
For out of disappointment
Flow sweetest odors yet.
The discord that involveth
Some startling change of key,
The master’s hand resolveth
In richest harmony.
We hush our children’s laughter,
When sunset hues grow pale;
Then, in the silence after,
They hear the nightingale.
We mourned the lamp declining,
That glimmered at our side;
The glorious starlight shining
Has proved a surer guide.
Then tremble not and shrink not
When Disappointment nears;
Be trustful still, and think not
To realize all fears.
While we are meekly kneeling,
We shall behold her rise,
Our Father’s love revealing,
An angel in disguise.
Frances Havergal