The Benefit of Difficulty
Canon Liddon. Hosea 2:6-7 Therefore, behold, I will hedge up your way with thorns, and make a wall, that she shall not find her paths.… A few days since there came to me a man whom I had known many years before as a person of good character, and who had made and saved money in business. He had been led to invest his savings in a partnership which had every guarantee of respectability and trustworthiness, but which within a few weeks became bankrupt, and left him not merely without a penny, but responsible for heavy debts. This happened some two years since; and for some time it was a question whether he and his large family must not go to the workhouse. In order to feed and clothe them he had to take to manual labour by day and by night at a very small remuneration; and since then things have somewhat bettered with him, though he is still a very poor man, instead of being, as he was, in very easy circumstances. But he said to me: "I would not for the world, sir, have it otherwise. My troubles have been nay greatest blessing in my whole life." And then he reminded me how he had had a religious education, and he told me how he had forgotten God in his years of prosperity, and how he had been driven back upon God as his hope and refuge, and had found in Him more, much more, than he had lost in earthly things. His religious duties, prayer, the Bible, the Holy Communion, all had been forgotten, all had again been resumed, and with a sense of the truest support and strength. (Canon Liddon.) Parallel Verses KJV: Therefore, behold, I will hedge up thy way with thorns, and make a wall, that she shall not find her paths. WEB: Therefore, behold, I will hedge up your way with thorns, and I will build a wall against her, that she can't find her way.