(Octavius Winslow "Evening Thoughts")

"I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine." Song 6:3

O yes! you have but one beloved of your heart, dear
believer! He is all the universe to you; heaven would
be no heaven without Him; and with His presence here,
earth seems often like the opening portal of heaven!

He loved you,
He labored for you,
He died for you,
He rose for you,
He lives and intercedes for you in glory!

All that is lovely is in Him.

And where would you lean in sorrow but upon the
bosom of your Beloved? Christ's heart is a human
heart, a sinless heart, a tender heart; a heart once
the home of sorrow, once stricken with grief; once
an aching, bleeding, mournful heart. Thus disciplined
and trained, Jesus knows how to pity and to support
those who are sorrowful and solitary. He loves . . . .
  to chase grief from the spirit,
  to bind up the broken heart,
  to staunch the bleeding wound,
  to dry the weeping eye,
  to comfort all who mourn.

It is His delight to visit you in the dark night season
of your sorrow, and to come to you walking upon the
tempestuous billows of your grief, breathing music and
diffusing calmness over your scene of sadness and gloom.

When other bosoms are closed to your sorrow, when
the fiery darts of Satan fly thick around you, and the
world frowns, and the saints are cold, and your path
is sad and desolate; then . . . .
  lean upon the love,
  lean upon the grace,
  lean upon the faithfulness,
  lean upon the tender sympathy of Jesus.

That bosom will always unveil to welcome you!

It will ever be an refuge to receive you,
and a home to shelter you.

Never . . . .
  will its love cool,
  nor its tenderness lessen,
  nor its sympathy be exhausted,
  nor its pulse of affection cease to beat.

You may have grieved it a thousand times over, you
may have pierced it through and through, again and
again; yet returning to its deathless love, penitent
and lowly, sorrowful and humble; you may lay within
it your weeping, aching, languid head . . . .
  depositing every burden,
  reposing every sorrow, and
  breathing every sigh upon the heart of Jesus.