Proceed with Your chiselings!

(Octavius Winslow, "Divine Realities" 1860)

"We know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose." Romans 8:28

Why are afflictions for the best? Because they never come, but beneath their raven wings, they enfold some hidden blessing. Embosomed in the somber cloud, there reposes some covenant mercy.

Repeated afflictions are repeated blessings!

They fall not as lightning on the scathed tree, blasting it yet more; but as the strokes of the sculptor on the marble block, forming it to the image of life and loveliness.

Gash may follow gash, stroke may follow stroke — but it is only to mold and fashion the soul of the child more into the image of its Heavenly Father.

"If this is so, my Lord, then proceed with Your chiselings, until your child, molded beneath Your hand, becomes more really and more visibly a partaker of Your holiness."