Grief and the devotional Streams in the Desert go hand in hand.
When a friend’s husband died, she received six copies as gifts from people.
They wanted to console her. They knew she loved to read. Streams in the Desert’s value seemed utmost at that time.
But why does a devotional make such a difference?
The author’s personal perspective
Lettie Cowman compiled the sayings, poems, and ideas that formed Streams in the Desert during a time of personal grief.
Worn out from their missionary work in Japan, Charles and Lettie Cowman returned to Los Angeles for his health.
The two, like so many others, had poured themselves into their evangelism efforts. They “specialized” in fundraising efforts for the Oriental Missionary Society and often traveled overseas.
When in Japan, they worked tirelessly.
But in 1917, they were 49 and 47 years old and both had weak hearts. Charles had near-debilitating angina. The doctor sent him home to the United States, to rest or die.
It took him seven years of pain, agony, and spiritual sorrow.
Lettie sat beside him night after night trying to help. She sang, prayed with him, and read aloud.
Scouring used bookstores all over Los Angeles, she purchased any material that might encourage her suffering adored spouse.
Lettie marked the encouraging passages. She clipped the newspaper, magazine, or church bulletin articles that would help.
Since she was fighting grief, confusion, and discouragement, Lettie gravitated toward encouraging lines that uplifted both of them.
Streams of the Desert’s value is it speaks to such sorrow.
How does it speak to grief and sorrow?
By the quoted selections and how Lettie framed them.
Here’s a sample written by Lettie from the March 20 reading:
As sorrowful, yet always rejoicing (2 Cor. 6:10).
The stoic scorns to shed a tear; the Christian is not forbidden to weep.
The soul may be dumb with excessive grief, as the shearer’s scissors pass over the quivering flesh; or, when the heart is on the point of breaking beneath the meeting surges of trial, the sufferer may seek relief by crying out with a loud voice.
But there is something even better.”
As above, Lettie chose a specific Bible verse as her theme.
We don’t know which came first, the theme verse or the particular clipping she used.
But Lettie put into words the emotion a grief-stricken person felt.
She knew very well to which verse a person overwhelmed by grief might cling.
Hope from Grief
Lettie acknowledged grief but did not wallow in it.
They say that springs of sweet fresh water well up amid the brine of salt seas; that the fairest Alpine flowers bloom in the wildest and most rugged mountain passes; that the noblest psalms were the outcome of the profoundest agony of soul.”
Grief is part of life. How we respond to it depends on us.
We need hope it will get better–albeit loss will always hurt.
Streams in the Desert reminds readers that life often grows out of difficulties. Hardships, death, changes, need to be grieved, yes. But hope is always there.
Nature often provides physical examples of hope triumphing over difficulties.
Take me to Jesus
Lettie, however, did not just end with nature’s example in her attempts to soothe.
She took readers to the only truth: Jesus.
Be it so. And thus amid manifold trials, souls which love God will find reasons for bounding, leaping joy.
Though deep call to deep, yet the Lord’s song will be heard in silver cadence through the night. And it is possible in the darkest hour that ever swept a human life to bless the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
It does no good to leave a person sorrowing without pointing them in a direction where they can find healing.
Through a life already lived with much sorrow, fear, and uncertainty, Lettie Cowman knew the hope was in God.
2 Corinthians 6 includes a long list of the trials, pains, and sorrow the Apostle Paul went through on behalf of the Gospel.
To Lettie, these are just as pertinent to the person in grief, which is why she chose it.
Poetry
The rest of the March 20 Streams in the Desert reading is a poem, “Trial as by Fire,” by the anonymous “S. P. W.”
Poetry is a branch of literature “designed” to provoke emotions. It often uses lyrical imaginary to describe feelings as if “painting” them.
Raised on the McGuffey Readers of the nineteenth century, Lettie Cowman adored poetry. The lyricism, musical sense that can come of poetry, intrigued her and she read it often.
In Streams in the Desert, Lettie used poetry to touch the soul.
I will be still, my bruised heart faintly murmured,
As o’er me rolled a crushing load of woe;
The cry, the call, e’en the low moan was stifled;
I pressed my lips; I barred the tear drop’s flow.”
The poetry paints grief in anthropomorphic words and the rhyme slips the meter into the reader’s heart.
But, Lettie uses the poem to lead the reader to hope:
But God is love, so I will bide me, bide me–
We’ll doubt not, Soul, we will be very still;
We’ll wait till after while, when He shall lift us
Yes, after while, when it shall be His will.
What sets the devotional apart?
She puts all the pieces together into a relatively short devotional that touches emotions and uses them to take the reader home to God.
100 years of reading proves Streams in the Desert helps.
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Thank you Michelle. This is one of my favorites devotionals and I read it through every year. I don’t know if you remember me or not, but I met you at lunch at the When Leaders Lead conference at Calvary Chapel Conference Center a few years ago. I have since bought and read your book on Biddie Chambers, as I love Oswald Chambers devotional as well. Especially now that I know how it came to be. Thank you for all your efforts.
Suzanne White