Not My Will and The Light in My Window Read Free Page A

sleep.” Ruth smiled. “So I am writing a letter. Mary has been with me, and she is a rare comfort. Don’t worry about me, dear. I am not afraid now, and I feel much better. Don’t let me forget to have you call Mr. Hastings in the morning. I want him to come out and discuss some important business. There’s no time to waste. Run along back to bed, dear. I am feeling sleepy now. I will put this aside and turn out the light.”
    Eleanor turned away with a heavy heart, and after the house was dark again she lay through the rest of the night, sleepless and rebellious. When she looked into the room the next morning, Aunt Ruth was sleeping quietly.
    Out in the kitchen Mary sang softly as she prepared breakfast.
    There is a fountain filled with blood,
Drawn from Immanuel’s veins;
And sinners, plunged beneath that flood,
Lose all their guilty stains!
    When she saw Eleanor she said, “The poor tired dear was sleepin’ so sweet I had no thought to wake her. We’ll let her get what rest she can from the naggin’ pain. She’ll rouse soon enough.”
    But she did not rouse. The doctor came, but there was nothing to be done. Before the day ended, the tired body of this so lately reconciled child of God was freed forever from the pain that had tortured it, and her spirit was safe at home in the Father’s house.
    On the table lay the unfinished letter. Its first words, “My dear, dear child,” told Eleanor that it was meant for her, but it was only after the funeral that she could force herself to read it.
    My dear, dear child:
    I may not have another chance to talk to you, and there is something that must be said. If I could turn back and live the past over again, I would try to teach you many things I failed to give you in these years when I had the opportunity. My sense of values is strangely altered in the light that has just come upon me.
    Of one thing I am not sorry. That is the plan for your future. As I have lain here I have begun to see a purpose in all this pain. This world is full of suffering, and this disease that has shattered me has contributed a share of it. No one has yet mastered it.The one who does will do more for mankind than I could do if I lived a thousand years. I am not predicting that you can do all this. But you can help. With your slides and glass you can join the ranks of those who battle disease and help to conquer it. If my going inspires you to do this, I am glad to have suffered.
    But I want to say more than this. Mary has talked and prayed with me. I have found the right way at last, I am sure, for I have found Christ. If only I had known Him long ago! I cannot urge you too strongly to commit your path to Christ. He will be the friend and guide you need, for He will never fail you, my child.
    The letter was never finished, but Eleanor did not care. She had what she thought was the expression of her aunt’s last wish, and her soul leaped to the challenge that it offered her. Then and there she dedicated her life to a battle with pain. What Aunt Ruth might have said had she been able to finish her letter did not matter. And the important business that she had wanted to discuss with her lawyer was not remembered again until years later when Eleanor wondered how her life might have been changed had her aunt been able to have that talk.
    In a few days the lawyer called and, in the presence of Mike and Mary, read the will. There was a generous bequest to these faithful servants—enough to enable them to return to the place of their youth and spend the rest of their lives in comfort on the little farm they had dreamed about but never dared hope to acquire.
    Everything else was given to Eleanor. Now she was free to continue her studies, to pursue the course to which she had pledged her life.
    Long months ago Eleanor and Aunt Ruth had planned the course Eleanor was to follow—years of school and then laboratory, and Eleanor had always thought she knew all Aunt Ruth’s wishes as to her future. But