Prescription for Heartache

Prescription for Heartache


"PLEASE GIVE ME a prescription for heartache."


This curious and rather pathetic request was made by a man who had been informed by his doctor that the feelings of disability of which he complained were not of a physical nature. His trouble lay in an inability to rise above sorrow. He was suffering from "an ache in his personality" as a result of grief.


His doctor advised him to secure spiritual consultation and treatment. So continuing to use the terminology of medicine, he repeated his question, "Is there a spiritual prescription which will reduce my constant inner suffering? I realize that sorrow comes to everyone and I should be able to meet it the same as others. I have tried my best but find no peace." Again he asked with a sad, slow smile, "Give me a prescription for heartache."


There is indeed a "prescription" for heartache. One element in the prescription is physical activity. The sufferer must avoid the temptation to sit and brood. A sensible program which substitutes physical activity for such fruitless brooding reduces the strain on the area of the mind where we reflect, philosophize, and suffer mental pain. Muscular activity utilizes another part of the brain and therefore shifts the strain and gives relief.


An old country lawyer who had a sound philosophy and much wisdom told a sorrowing woman that the best medicine for a broken heart is "to take a scrubbing brush and get down on your knees and go to work. The best medicine for a man," he declared, "is to get an ax and chop wood until physically tired." While this is not guaranteed to be a complete cure for heartache, yet it does tend to mitigate such suffering.


Whatever the character of your heartache, one of the first steps is to resolve to escape from any defeatist situation which may have been created around yourself, even though it is difficult to do so, and return once again to the normal course of your life. Get back into the main stream of life’s activities. Take up your old associations. Form new ones. Get busy walking, riding, swimming, playing—get the blood to coursing through your system. Lose yourself in some worth-while project. Fill your days with creative activity and emphasize the physical aspect of activity.


Employ healthy mind-relieving busyness, but be sure that it is of a worth-while and constructive nature. Superficial escapism through feverish activity merely deadens pain temporarily and does not heal, as, for example, parties and drinking. An excellent and normal release from heartache is to give way to grief. There is a foolish point of view current today that one should not show grief, that it is not proper to cry or express oneself through the natural mechanism of tears and sobbing. This is a denial of the law of nature. It is natural to cry when pain or sorrow comes. It is a relief mechanism provided in the body by Almighty God and should be used.


To restrain grief, to inhibit it, to bottle it up, is to fail to use one of God’s means for eliminating the pressure of sorrow. Like every other function of the human body and nervous system, this must be controlled, but it should not be denied altogether. A good cry by either man or woman is a release from heartache. I should warn, however, that this mechanism should not be used unduly nor allowed to become a habitual process. Should that happen, it partakes of the nature of abnormal grief and could become a psychosis. Unrestraint of any kind should not be allowed.


I receive many letters from people whose loved ones have died. They tell me that it is very difficult for them to go to the same places they were in the habit of frequenting together or to be with the same people with whom they associated as a couple or as a family. Therefore they avoid the old-time places and friends. I regard this as a serious mistake. A secret of curing heartache is to be as normal and natural as possible. This does not imply disloyalty or indifference. This policy is important in avoiding a state of abnormal grief. Normal sorrow is a natural process and its normality is evidenced by the ability of the individual to return to his usual pursuits and responsibilities and continue therein as formerly.


The deeper remedy for heartache, of course, is the curative comfort supplied by trust in God. Inevitably the basic prescription for heartache is to turn to God in an attitude of faith and empty the mind and heart to Him. Perseverance in the act of spiritual self-emptying will;’ finally bring healing to the broken heart. This generation, which has suffered fully as much if not more heartache than people in preceding eras, needs to relearn that which the wisest men of all time have known, namely, that there is no healing of the pain suffered by humanity, except through
the benign ministrations of faith.


One of the greatest souls of the ages was Brother Lawrence, who said, "If in this life we would know the serene peace of Paradise, we must school ourselves in familiar, humble, and loving converse with God." It is not advisable to attempt to carry the burden of sorrow and mental pain without Divine help, for its weight is more than the personality can bear. The simplest and most effective of all prescriptions for heartache then is to practice the presence of God. This will
soothe the ache in your heart and ultimately heal the wound. Men and women who have experienced great tragedy tell us that this prescription is effective.


Another profoundly curative element in the prescription for heartache is to gain a sound and satisfying philosophy of life and death and deathlessness. For my part, when I gained the unshakable belief that there is no death, that all life is indivisible, that the here and here- after are one, that time and eternity are inseparable, that this is one unobstructed universe, then I found the most satisfying and convincing philosophy of my entire life.


These convictions are based upon sound foundations, the Bible for one. I believe that the Bible gives us a very subtle, and as will be proved ultimately, a scientific series of insights into the great question, "What happens when a man leaves this world?" Also the Bible very wisely tells us that we know these truths by faith. Henri Bergson, the philosopher, says that the surest way into truth is by perception, by intuition, by reasoning to a certain point, then by taking a "mortal
leap," and by intuition attaining the truth. You come to some glorious moment where you simply "know." That is the way it happened to me.


I am absolutely, wholeheartedly, and thoroughly convinced of the truth of which I write and have no doubt of it, even to an infinitesimal degree. I arrived at this positive faith gradually, yet there came one moment when I knew. This philosophy will not ward off the sorrow which comes when a loved one dies and physical, earthly separation ensues. But it will lift and dissipate grief. It will fill your mind with a deep understanding of the meaning of this inevitable circumstance. And it will give you a deep assurance that you have not lost your loved one. Live on this faith and you will be at peace and the ache will leave your heart.


Take into your mind and heart one of the most marvelous texts in the Holy Bible—"Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared tor them that love him." (1Co 2:9)


This means that you have never seen, no matter what you have seen, however wonderful it is, you have never seen anything to compare with the marvelous things that God has prepared for those who love Him and who put their trust in Him. Moreover, it says that you have never heard anything to compare with the astonishing marvels that God has laid up for those who follow His teachings and live according to His spirit. Not only have you never seen nor ever heard but you have never even dimly imagined what He is going to do for you. This sentence goes all out in promising comfort and immortality and reunion and every good thing to those who center their lives in God.


After many years of reading the Bible and being intimately connected with all the phases of the lives of hundreds of people, I wish to state unequivocally that I have found this Biblical promise to be absolutely true. It applies even to this world. People who really practice living on a Christlike basis have the most incredible things happen to them.


This passage also relates to the state of existence of those now living on the other side and our relationship, while we live, to those who have preceded us across that barrier which we call death. I use the word "barrier" somewhat apologetically. We have always thought of death as a barrier with a concept of a separatist nature.


Scientists working today in the field of parapsychology and extra-sensory perception and experimenting in precognition, telepathy, clairvoyance (all of which were formerly considered paraphernalia of the cranks, but which are now of sound, scientific usage in the laboratories), are expressing themselves as believing that the soul survives the barrier of time and space. In effect, we are on the edge of one of the greatest scientific discoveries in history which will substantiate, on a laboratory-exploratory basis, the existence of the soul and its deathlessness.


For many years I have been accumulating a series of incidents, the validity of which I accept and which bear out the conviction that we live in a dynamic universe where life, not death, is the basic principle. I have confidence in the people who have described the following experiences and am convinced that they indi- cate a world impinged upon or intertwined with our own through the meshes of which human spirits, on both sides of death, live in unbroken fellowship. The conditions of life on the other side, as we know them in mortality, are modified. Undoubtedly those who have crossed to the other side dwell in a higher medium than we do , and their understanding is amplified beyond ours, yet all the facts point to the continued existence of our loved ones and the further fact that they are not far away, and still another fact implied, but no less real, that we shall be reunited with them.


Meanwhile, we continue in fellowship with those who dwell in the spirit world. William James, one of America’s greatest scholars, after a lifetime of study said he was satisfied that the human brain is only a medium for the soul’s existence and that the mind as now constituted will be exchanged at last for a brain that will allow the owner to reach out into untapped areas of understanding. As our spiritual being is amplified here on earth and as we grow in age and experience we become more conscious of this vaster world all around us, and when we die it is only to enter into an enlarged capacity.


Euripides, one of the greatest thinkers of antiquity, was convinced that the next life would be one of infinitely greater magnitude. Socrates shared the same concept. One of the most comforting statements ever made was his remark, "No evil can befall a good man in this life or in the next."


Natalie Kalmus, scientific expert in technicolor, tells about the death of her sister. The following account given by this scientifically trained woman appeared in the inspirational magazine Guideposts.


Natalie Kalmus quotes her dying sister as saying, "‘ Natalie, promise me that you won’t let them give me any drugs. I realize that they are trying to help relieve my pain, but I want to be fully aware of every sensation. I am convinced that death will be a beautiful experience.’"


"I promised. Alone, later, I wept, thinking of her courage. Then as I tossed in bed on through the night, I realized that what I thought to be a calamity my sister intended to be a triumph."


"Ten days later the final hour drew near. I had been at her bedside for hours. We had talked about many things, and always I marveled at her quiet, sincere confidence in eternal life. Not once did the physical tortures overcome her spiritual strength. This was something that the doctors simply hadn’t taken into account."


"‘ Dear kind God, keep my mind clear and give me peace,’" she had murmured over and over again during those last days.


"We had talked so long that I noticed she was drifting off to sleep. I left her quietly with the nurse and retired to get some rest. A few minutes later I heard my sister’s voice calling for me. Quickly I returned to her room. She was dying."


"I sat on her bed and took her hand. It was on fire. Then she seemed to rise up in bed almost to a sitting position."


"‘ Natalie," she said, "there are so many of them."


There’s Fred . . . and Ruth . . . what’s she doing here? Oh, I know!’


"An electric shock went through me. She had said Ruth. Ruth was her cousin who had died suddenly the week before. But Eleanor had not been told of Ruth’s sudden death."


"Chill after chill shot up and down my spine. I felt on the verge of some powerful, almost frightening knowledge. She had murmured Ruth’s name."


Her voice was surprisingly clear. "It’s so confusing. So many of them!" Suddenly her arms stretched out as happily as when she had welcomed me! "I’m going up," she said. "Then she dropped her arms around my neck—and relaxed in my arms. The will of her spirit had turned final agony into rapture."


"As I laid her head back on the pillow, there was a warm, peaceful smile on her face. Her golden-brown hair lay carelessly on the pillow. I took a white flower from the vase and placed it in her hair. With her petite, trim figure, her wavy hair, the white flower, and the soft smile, she looked once more—and permanently—just like a schoolgirl."


The mention of her cousin Ruth by the dying girl and the evident fact that she saw her clearly is a phenomenon that recurs again and again in the incidents which have come to my attention. So repetitive is this phenomenon and so similar are the characteristics of this experience as described by many that it amounts to a substantial evidence that the people whose names are called, whose faces are seen, are actually present.


Where are they? What is their condition? What sort of body have they? These are questions that are difficult.


The idea of a different dimension is probably the most tenable, or it may be more accurate to believe that they live in a different frequency cycle.


It is impossible to see through the blades of an electric fan when it is in a stationary position. At high speed, however, the blades appear to be transparent. In the higher frequency or the state in which our loved ones dwell, the impenetrable qualities of the universe may open to the gaze of one passing into the mysteries. In deep moments of our own lives it is entirely possible that we enter to a degree at least into that higher frequency. In one of the most beautiful lines in English
literature, Robert Ingersoll suggests this great truth, "In the night of death, hope sees a star and listening love can hear the rustle of a wing."


A famous neurologist tells of a man who was at death’s door. The dying man looked up at the physician sitting beside his bed and began to call off names which the physician wrote down. The doctor was personally unfamiliar with any name mentioned. Later the physician asked the man’s daughter, "Who are these people? Your father spoke of them as if he saw them."


"They are all relatives," she said, "who have been dead a long time."


The physician said he believes his patient did see them.


Friends of mine, Mr. and Mrs. William Sage, lived in New Jersey and I was often in their home. Mr. Sage, whom his wife called Will, died first. A few years later, when Mrs. Sage was on her deathbed, the most surprised look passed across her face, and it lighted up in a wonderful smile as she said, "Why, it is Will." That she saw him those about her bed had no doubt whatsoever.


Arthur Godfrey, famous radio personality, tells of being asleep in his bunk on a destroyer in World War I. Suddenly his father stood beside him. He put out his hand, smiled, and said, "So long, son," and Godfrey answered, "So long, Dad."


Later he was awakened and given a cablegram telling him of the death of his father. The time of his passing was given, and it was the precise period during which Godfrey in his sleep "saw" his father.


Mary Margaret McBride, also a famous radio personality, was overwhelmed with grief upon the death of her mother. They had been very close to each other. She awakened one night and sat on the edge of her bed. Suddenly she had the feeling, to use her own words, that "Mama was with me." She did not see her mother nor hear her speak, but from that time on, "I knew that my mother isn’t dead—that she is nearby."


The late Rufus Jones, one of the most famous spiritual leaders of our time, tells about his son Lowell who died at twelve years of age. He was the apple of his father’s eye. The boy took sick when Dr. Jones was on the ocean bound for Europe. The night before entering Liverpool, while lying in his bunk, he experienced an indefinable, inexplainable feeling of sadness. Then he said that he seemed to be enveloped in the arms of God. A great feeling of peace and a sense of a profound possession of his son came to him.


Upon landing in Liverpool he was advised that his son had died, his death occurring at the precise hour when Dr. Jones had felt a sense of God’s presence and the everlasting nearness of his son.


A member of my church, Mrs. Bryson Kalt, tells of an aunt whose husband and three children were burned to death when their house was destroyed by fire. The aunt was badly burned but lived for three years. When finally she lay dying a radiance suddenly came over her face. "It is all so beautiful," she said. "They are coming to meet me. Fluff up my pillows and let me go to sleep."


Mr. H. B. Clarke, an old friend of mine, was for many years a construction engineer, his work taking him into all parts of the world. He was of a scientific turn of mind, a quite restrained, factual, unemotional type of man. I was called one night by his physician, who said that he did not expect him to live but a few hours. His heart action was slow and the blood pressure was extraordinarily low. There was no reflex action at all. The doctor. gave no hope.


I began to pray for him, as did others. The next day his eyes opened and after a few days he recovered his speech. His heart action and blood pressure returned to normal. After he recovered strength he said, "At some- time during my illness something very peculiar happened to me. I cannot explain it. It seemed that I was a long distance away. I was in the most beautiful and attractive place I have ever seen. There were lights all about me, beautiful lights. I saw faces dimly revealed, kind faces they were, and I felt very peaceful and happy. In fact, I have never felt
happier in my life."


"Then the thought came to me, ‘I must be dying.’ Then it occurred to me, ‘Perhaps I have died.’ Then I almost laughed out loud, and asked myself, ‘Why have I been afraid of death all my life? There is nothing to be afraid of in this.’ "


"How did you feel about it?" I asked. "Did you want to come back to life? Did you want to live, for you were not dead, although the doctor felt that you were very close to death. Did you want to live?"


He smiled and said, "It did not make the slightest difference. If anything, I think I would have preferred to stay in that beautiful place."


Hallucination, a dream, a vision—I do not believe so. I have spent too many years talking to people who have come to the edge of "something" and had a look across, who unanimously have reported beauty, light, and peace, to have any doubt in my own mind.


The New Testament teaches the indestructibility of life in a most interesting and simple manner. It describes Jesus after His crucifixion in a series of appearances, disappearances, and reappearances. Some saw Him and then He vanished out of their sight. Then others saw Him and again He vanished. It is as if to say, "You see me and then you do not see me." This indicates that He is trying to tell us that when we do not see Him, it does not mean He is not there. Out of sight does not mean out of life. Occasional mystical appearances which some experience indicate the same truth, that He is near by. Did He not say, ". . . because I live, ye shall live also." (Joh 14:19) In other words, our loved ones who have died in this faith are also near by and occasionally draw near to comfort us.


A boy serving in Korea wrote to his mother, saying, "The strangest things happen to me. Once in a while at night, when I am afraid. Daddy seems to be with me." Daddy had been dead for ten years. Then the boy wistfully asks his mother, "Do you think that Daddy can actually be with me here on these Korean battlefields?" The answer is, "Why not?" How can we be citizens of a scientific generation and not believe that this could be true? Again and again proofs are offered that this is a dynamic universe, surcharged with mystic, electric, electronic, atomic forces, and all are so wonderful that we have never yet comprehended them. This universe is a great spiritual sounding house, alive and vital.


Albert E. Cliff, well-known Canadian writer, tells of the death of his father. The dying man had sunk into a coma and it was thought he was gone. Then a momentary resurgence of life occurred. His eyes flickered open. On the wall was one of those old-time mottoes which said, "I know That My Redeemer Liveth." The dying man opened his eyes, looked at that motto, and said, "I do know that my Redeemer liveth, for they are all here around me—mother, father, brothers, and sisters." Long gone from this earth were they all, but evidently he saw them. Who is to gainsay?


The late Mrs. Thomas A. Edison told me that when her famous husband was dying he whispered to his physician, "It is very beautiful over there." Edison was the world’s greatest scientist. All his life he had worked with phenomena. He was of a factual cast of mind. He never reported anything as a fact until he saw it work. He would never have reported, "It is very beautiful over there" unless, having seen, he knew it to be true.


Many years ago a missionary went to the South Sea Islands to work among a cannibal tribe. After many months he converted the chief to Christianity. One day this old chief said to the missionary, "Remember the time you first came among us?"


"Indeed I do," replied the missionary. "As I went through the forest I became aware of hostile forces all around me."


"They did indeed surround you," said the chief, "for we were following you to kill you, but something prevented us from doing it."


"And what was that?" asked the missionary. "Now that we are friends, tell me," coaxed the chief, "who were those two shining ones walking on either side of you?"


My friend, Geoffrey O’Hara, famous song writer, author of the popular World War I song, "Katy," also "There Is No Death," "Give a Man a Horse He Can Ride," and other songs, tells of a colonel in World War I whose regiment was wiped out in a bloody engagement. As he paced up and down the trench he says he could feel their hands and sense their presence. He said to Geoffrey O’Hara, "I tell you, there is no death."


Mr. O’Hara wrote one of his greatest songs using that title, "there is no death." Of these deep and tender matters I personally have no doubt whatsoever. I firmly believe in the continuation of life after that which we call death takes place. I believe there are two sides to the phenomenon known as death—this side where we now live and the other side where we shall continue to live. Eternity does not stand with death. We are in eternity now. We are citizens of eternity. We merely change the form of the experience called life, and that change, I am persuaded, is for the
better.


My mother was a great soul, and her influence on me will ever stand out in my life as an experience that cannot be surpassed. She was a wonderful conversationalist.


Her mind was keen and alert. She traveled the world over and enjoyed wide contacts as a Christian leader in missionary causes. Her life was full and rich. She had a marvelous sense of humor. She was good company, and I always loved to be with her. She was considered by all who knew her an unusually fascinating and stimulating personality.


During my adult years whenever I had the opportunity I would go home to see her. I always anticipated the arrival at the family home, for it was an exciting experience in which everyone talked at once as we sat around the breakfast table. What happy reunions—what glorious meetings. Then came her death, and we tenderly laid her body in the beautiful little cemetery at Lynchburg in southern Ohio, a town where she had lived as a girl. I was very sad the day we left her there, and went away heavy-hearted. It was in the fullness of summertime when we took her home to her last resting place.


It came autumn, and I felt that I wanted to be with my mother again. I was lonely without her, therefore I decided to go to Lynchburg. All night long on the train I thought sadly of the happy days now gone and how things were utterly changed and would never be the same again.


So I came to the little town. The weather was cold and the sky overcast as I walked to the cemetery. I pushed through the old iron gates and my feet rustled in the leaves as I walked to her grave where I sat sad and lonely. Of a sudden the clouds parted and the sun came through. It lighted up the Ohio hills in gorgeous autumn colors, the hills where I grew up as a boy, which I have always loved so well, where she herself had played as a girl in the long ago.


Then all of a sudden I seemed to hear her voice. Now I didn’t actually hear her voice, but I seemed to. I am sure I heard it by the inward ear. The message was clear and distinct. It was stated in her beloved old-time tone, and this is what she said, "Why seek ye the living among the dead? I am not here. Do you think that I would stay in this dark and dismal place? I am with you and my loved ones always." In a burst of inner light I became wondrously happy. I knew that what I had heard was the truth. The message came to me with all the force of actuality. I could have shouted, and I stood up and put my hand on the tombstone and saw it for what it is,
only a place where mortal remains lay. The body was there, to be sure, but it was only a coat that had been laid off because the wearer needed it no longer. But she, that gloriously lovely spirit, she was not there.


I walked out of that place and only rarely since have I returned. I like to go back there and think of her and the old days of my youth, but no longer is it a place of gloom. It is merely a symbol, for she is not there. She is with us her loved ones. "Why seek ye the living among the dead?" (Lu 24:5)


Read and believe the Bible as it tells about the goodness of God and the immortality of the soul. Pray sincerely and with faith. Make prayer and faith the habit of your life. Learn to have real fellowship with God and with Jesus Christ. As you do this you will find a deep conviction welling up in your mind that these wonderful things are true indeed.


". . . if it were not so, I would have told you." (Joh 14:2) You can depend upon the reliability of Christ. He would not let you believe and hold convictions so sacred in nature unless they are absolutely true.


So in this faith, which is a sound, substantial, and rational view of life and eternity, you have the prescription for heartache.




(By Norman Vincent Peale in Power of Positive Thinking)