The English Puritan John Trapp once wrote: "One Son God hath without sin, but none without sorrow." The American Presbyterian clergyman Theodore Ledyard Cuyler (1822-1909) was also, like his Savior, "a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief" (Isa. 53:3).
Cuyler lost two infant children, as well as a daughter who was 22 when she died. In the midst of the deepest bereavement, he began to write God's Light on Dark Clouds (1882). Later, he would go on to write Beulah-Land; or, Words of Cheer for Christian Pilgrims (1896); and Help and Good Cheer (1902). These devotionals for weary, hurting and discouraged Christian pilgrims were all written by one who understood the hurt and anguish of loss, and had tasted of the sweet comfort of Christ, who tells his disciples to be of good cheer, for he has overcome the world (John 16:33). Cuyler also wrote Pointed Papers for the Christian Life (1879), a guide for the Christian along the journey, through all its vale of tears (Ps. 23:4; 84:6).
These volumes of encouragement have helped many pilgrims from the 19th century to the 21st. Dear Reader, if you have need of such encouragement, take note of them and may you find comfort there.