The Silent Comforter

On Tuesday, February 1st, I was alone in the room of my precious wife at the Orphan Houses. She was at home in bed, a thing which had not been the case for more than nine years. There were hanging in her room a number of precious texts from the Holy Scriptures, printed in large type, arranged for each day in the month, called “The Silent Comforter.”

The sheet then turned up, contained these words, “I know, O Lord, that Thy judgments are right, and that Thou in faithfulness hast afflicted me” (Ps. 119:75). I read this again and again, and each time my inmost soul responded, “Yes, Lord, Thy judgments are right, I am satisfied with them. Thou knowest the depth of the affection of Thy poor child for his beloved wife, yet I am satisfied with Thy judgments; and my inmost soul says, that Thou in faithfulness hast afflicted me.

All this is according to that love, with which Thou hast loved me in Christ Jesus, and whatever the issue, all will be well.” There was also written on that sheet of “The Silent Comforter,” “My times are in Thy hand” (Ps. 31:15). My heart responded, in reading these words, “Yes, my Father, the times of my darling wife are in Thy hands.

Thou wilt do the very best thing for her and for me, whether life or death. If it may be, raise up yet again my precious wife—Thou art able to do it, though she is so ill; but howsoever Thou dealest with me, only help me to continue to be perfectly satisfied with Thy holy will.” During the whole week, whilst my beloved wife was lying on her death-bed, these lines of the precious hymn—“One there is above all others—O how He loves!” were ever present with me:

“Best of Blessings He’ll provide us,

Nought but good shall e’er betide us,

Safe to glory He will guide us,

Oh how He loves!”

My heart continually responded—“Nought but good shall e’er betide us.” My inmost soul was assured, that however my loving Father acted with His poor child, it would be for his good.

On Wednesday, February 2nd, my beloved wife being comparatively free from pain, I read to her, before I went to the Orphan Houses, this verse out of the eighty-fourth Psalm—“The Lord God is a sun and shield: the Lord will give grace and glory: no good thing will He withhold from them that walk uprightly.”

Having read the verse, I said, “My darling, we have both received grace, and we shall therefore receive glory; and as, by God’s grace, we walk uprightly, nothing that is good for us will He withhold from us.” She evidently was blessed through this verse, for she spoke about it to our daughter in the course of the day.

To my own heart the verse was a great support, for I said to myself again and again, “I walk uprightly, and therefore my Father will withhold nothing from me, that is good for me; if therefore the restoration of my dearest wife is good for me, it will be surely given; if otherwise, I have to seek to glorify God by most perfect submission to His holy will.”

George Müller, Autobiography of George Müller: A Million and a Half in Answer to Prayer (London: J. Nisbet and Co., 1914), 442–443.