When he was a young married man, Prebendary Webb-Peploe, a noted British preacher, took his little family to the seaside for a holiday. One of his little children was drowned. He returned to the city devastated with grief. In his distress he knelt at the desk in his study and poured out his grief before God. He pleaded with God to make His grace sufficient for him in his deep need. But no comfort came. The sense of desolation was still as acute as ever.
Through his tears, he looked up at the familiar text on the wall above the mantelpiece, but now with a new interest. The text was: “My grace IS sufficient for thee” (2 Corinthians 12:9). For the first time he noticed that the IS was printed in large letters. Light dawned. “Lord, here have I been asking you to make your grace sufficient for me in my loss, and all the time you have been telling me that it IS sufficient. I now appropriate for myself your sufficient grace.” His act of faith was immediately rewarded. Although the sense of loss was no less, the compensating comfort of God flooded his heart and he had peace.
Grand Rapids, Michigan: Discovery House Publishers, Enjoying Your Best Years, by J. Oswald Sanders