Focusing Our Thoughts

One lesson I picked up on through "The Secret Garden" was about sorrow and joy, and dealing with loss. Mr. Craven lost his wife to a dreadful accident just before his son, Colin, was born. (The young Mrs. Craven was pregnant when the accident occurred and she lived just long enough to bring her son into the world.) After her death, Mr. Craven locked the garden that his dear wife had loved (which was also where the accident occurred), and threw away the key so that no one would ever walk in it again. As the flowers in the garden were left untended, so likewise Mr. Craven withered inside. He refused to ever see his son or talk about him. Left to himself, he was consumed with his grief until it was all he could think about. It seems that his mental grief became a physical burden to him because after his wife's death he, a frail and sickly man from infancy, developed a sort of hump on his back and spent much of the time hunched over and leaning on a cane to walk.

Upon first hearing this story, one might think that Mr. Craven was selfless in his love and grief for his wife, spending all his thought and energy mourning his loss. However, I do not think that was the case. His grief for his wife's passing consumed him totally. Now, grief for a loved one is natural. In Matthew 5:4 we read the well-known verse, "Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted." However, Mr. Craven would not be comforted, and in his grief he became selfish and self-absorbed, forgetting even the emotional needs of his son in his own bereavement. His love for his wife was no doubt true, and her death was a tragedy that should have been mourned. He would miss her for the rest of his life. Nevertheless, he should not have shut himself off from the world and from his son, so that his own home became as cold and empty as a graveyard. Also, in locking the garden, he shut out one of the greatest beauties of his home from the world, taking from others the joy they might have found in that garden because of his own grief.

The boy, Colin, was left to believe, and understandably so, that his father hated him and was ashamed of him. Consumed with his own loneliness, the boy became as self-absorbed as his father, though from a different source. He became obsessed with the delusion that he had a hump growing on his back like his father and that he would die before he was grown. His early frailty caused by his premature birth added to this delusion and made others like his housekeeper, nurse, and even doctor believe in it as well. It was only when Mary Lennox, an equally selfish, haughty, and lonely little girl, came to live in the house that he got better. Her endeavor of the secret garden and her friendship with Dickens caused Mary to be less self-absorbed, and in turn, she forced Colin's focus off himself and put it on other, more worthy things. Mary and Dickens pushed Colin in his wheelchair around in their garden and helped him to walk again over the course of many weeks and months.

I am not writing any of this as well as I should like; my thoughts are always difficult to put into writing, but hopefully their gist is communicated.

It is so easy to become selfish in one's thinking - to focus only on one's own needs and desires, and to forget about others, at least in our thoughts. I am learning more and more about focusing even our thoughts on God, and His glory, and the others He has placed in our lives. The most mundane thoughts can be altered to include a reflection of God's glory. Every thing we do, even the simplest thing, can be done in such a way as to be obedient to God's Word and how he would wish us to act. Even doing the dishes can be an act of obedience and submission if our thoughts and attitudes are God-honoring. When even our thoughts can be sinful, it is easy to become overwhelmed with our failures. Yet God forgives our sins and helps us to honor and glorify Him if we seek Him with all our hearts.

This may not seem very connected to "The Secret Garden", but it was a very natural path for me and hopefully you will be able to follow along as well. I guess it all comes down to focusing on others, even when in pain. We are not the only ones to have suffered a loss, and our suffering does not excuse our following self-absorbtion shown in both our thoughts and attitudes. We must focus our thoughts on God and on others, only then will we find peace and rest, despite the most trying and painful of circumstances.