Disappointments in Our Children’s Hearts
One of the hard things that we mamas have to face is disappointment in the hearts of our children. When their closest friends move away, when they don’t get to play in the game—even when their balloons pop before they get to the van, we remember what those things felt like when we were children and our hearts fil with empathy. Sometimes, when the disappointment is particularly hard, maybe our eyes also fill with tears.
Even for us, it is hard to grasp the truth of Romans 8:28:
And we know that God causes
all things to work together for good
to those who love God,
to those who are called
according to His purpose.
Romans 8:28
When our children grow up and have children of their own, their disappointments are often much bigger than they were when they were children. Then we long for the days when we could pull them into our laps and kiss their tears away.
At the end of scene 2 in Blessed Assurance: The Story of Fanny Crosby, John and Mercy Crosby and Mercy’s mother stand close together in deep sorrow as they look into the face of baby Fanny and the reality of her blindness sinks in.
When scene 3 opens, Mercy sits forlornly in her mother’s rocking chair while her mother tries to comfort her. Mercy says, “Oh, Mother. What am I to do? My husband is dead. My only child is blind. What am I to do?”
Eunice reminds Mercy that God will take care of her, that He is the good shepherd who never forgets any of His sheep. Then she quotes from a hymn by John Newton:
Though troubles assail and dangers affright,
Though friends should all fail and foes all unite;
Yet one thing assures us, whatever betide,
The scripture assures us the Lord will provide.
Then she asks her daughter if she has written to the doctor in New York City. Mercy tells her that she did but that she hasn’t heard back from him.
Fanny enters, calling “Grandma? Grandma!” As she feels her way to the rocking chair, she is surprised to find her mother in Grandma’s chair.
She feels her mother’s cheeks and knows that she has been crying.
Mercy explains that she misses Fanny’s father very much and that she is sad that her little girl is blind, adding that sometimes the weight of it all feels like too much to bear.
Fanny tells her mother that she is all right and can play just like the other children, though she does wish that she could go to school. Then she says that she is going outside for some sunshine, leaving her mother weeping.
Outside Fanny meets Miss Rachel who is delivering their mail. It’s a letter from New York City.
Soon Fanny runs back inside, hoping the letter will cheer up her mother.
The letter does cheer her up because it is from the famous doctor in New York who specializes in taking care of eyes. She tells her mother and Fanny that he has invited them to come to his office in New York. Fanny tells Mercy that she doesn’t care so much about his fixing her eyes, but adds: “. . . but a trip to New York City! How exciting that will be!”
Time has passed when scene 4 begins. Fanny sits outside with neighbor children who ask her about the trip to New York City. Fanny says, “The trip was long. I was jostled in a wagon for hours, but then we got to sail down the Hudson River. The captain and I became great friends. He told me tales and I sang for him.”
Fanny begins to sing and the neighbor children join in.
The children wonder what it was like in New York and if it really smelled as bad as people said it did. She said it smelled worse and that it was noisy and crowded, but the doctor was nice and gave her a doll to play with while she waited. She told them though that there wasn’t anything he could do for her and added, “So I’ll have to be blind forever, I guess.”
One of the boys asks Fanny, “Don’t you wish you could see?”
Fanny answers, “Not really. I wrote a poem about that one day.”
A girl exclaims, “You write a poem about everything!”
Fanny responds, “I suppose I do. There’s so much I want to say, and poetry often seems the best way to say it.” Then she recites her poem:
Oh, what a happy soul I am, although I cannot see,
I am resolved that in this world contented I will be.
How many blessings I enjoy that other people don’t!
To weep and sigh because I’m blind I cannot nor I won’t.
As you talk about God’s teachings while you sit in your house and go from place to place and lie down at night and rise in the morning, as you face the disappointments of your children and the disappointments of your own, you have the crucial opportunity to show them how to face the joys and the sorrows of life and to remind them of this assurance from the book of Romans:
And we know that God causes
all things to work together for good
to those who love God,
to those who are called
according to His purpose.
Romans 8:28