One day you will realise that your present suffering is the place of your glory and joy. Such was the belief of George Matheson. George Matheson was a Scottish Presbyterian minister. He entered into his studies at the age of 15 at the University of Glasgow. Sadly, he was struck with a degenerative disorder which meant by the time he was twenty he was completely blind. On top of this sorrow, his fiancée left him because she didn’t think she could endure the challenges of being married to a blind man. George Matheson continued studying with the help of his sisters and became a minister and much-loved hymn writer. He wrote hymns such as “Love that wilt not let me go.”

In one of his devotional writings he wrote the following profound words that remind us of the future glory awaiting those who suffer. It rings clearly in line with Paul’s words, “For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen.”¹

“There is a time coming in which your glory shall consist in the very thing which now constitutes your pain.
Nothing could be more sad to Jacob than the ground on which he was lying, a stone for a pillow! It was the hour of his poverty. It was the season of his night. It was the seeming absence of God. The Lord was in the place and he knew it not. Awakened from his sleep he found that the day of his trial was the dawn of his triumph! Ask the great ones of the past what has been the spot of their prosperity and they will say, “It was the cold ground on which I was lying.”
Ask Abraham; he will point you to the sacrifice on Mount Moriah.
Ask Joseph; he will direct you to his dungeon.
Ask Moses; he will date his fortune from his danger in the Nile.
Ask Ruth; she will bid you build her monument in the field of her toil.
Ask David; he will tell you that his songs came from the hight.
Ask Job; he will remind you that God answered him out of the whirlwind.
Ask Peter; he will extol his submersion in the sea.
Ask John; he will give the path to Patmos.
Ask Paul; he will attribute his inspiration to the light which struck him blind.
Ask one more!–the Son of God; Ask Him whence has come His rule over the world: He will answer, ‘From the cold ground on which I was lying–the Gethsemane ground–I received my sceptre there.’
Thou too, my soul, shall be garlanded by Gethsemane! The cup thou fain wouldst pass from thee will be thy coronet in the sweet by and by. “The hour of thy loneliness will crown thee. The day of thy depression will regale thee. It is thy desert that will break forth in the singing It is the trees of thy silent forest that will clap their hands. The last things will be first, in the sweet by and by. The thorns will be roses. The vales will be hills. The crooks will be straight lines, the ruts level, the shadows will be shining. The losses will be promotions. The tears will be tracks of gold. The voice of God to thine evening will be this: ‘Thy treasure is hid in the ground, where thou wert lying.”

1. 2 Corinthians 4:17–18 ↩︎