
I have had a love for literature and the written word for as long as I can remember, awakened in me by a stern, but very gifted, teacher.
She taught in unique but memorable ways, like always saying the word redundant twice in a row. “Redundant, redundant.”
She consistently characterized even the most benign behavior as “rude, crude, and uncouth,” and she read Chaucer’s much harder to understand Prologue to The Canterbury Tales in its original Middle English.
The seeds she planted germinated into a fully grown love and appreciation for the words and characters I met along the way.
She unveiled the name of the main character from The Scarlet Letter this way: “Hester Prynne rhymes with sin.” I never forgot it.
I’ve actually been thinking about Hester a lot lately, finding myself (minus the adultery part) relating with her in ways I never dreamed I would.
Hester was the object of public scorn and contempt, shunned and cast aside by many. Rather than respond in kind, though, she chose, instead, to protect the reputations of those who had hurt her.
She was forced to wear a scarlet 𝐀 everywhere she went. It was a conspicuous messenger of shame, mercilessly foisted upon her, marking her as surely as if she had been branded.
She never defended herself or exposed the disqualifying actions of her detractors. She kept their secrets, ultimately resting in who she knew herself to be underneath the scarlet letter.
Hawthorne described the galvanizing benefit of her struggle this way: “The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where others dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers—stern and wild ones—but they had made her strong.”
Continuing, he says, “In the lapse of the toilsome, thoughtful, and self-devoted years that made up Hester’s life, the scarlet letter ceased to be a stigma which attracted the world’s scorn and bitterness, and became a type of something to be sorrowed over, and looked upon with awe, yet with reverence too.”
Yes, time has a way of doing that, eventually sussing out fact from fiction, and transfiguring injustice and repeated woundings into things of unparalleled beauty and significance.
“…people brought all their sorrows and perplexities, and besought her counsel, as one who had herself gone through a mighty trouble…Hester comforted and counseled them, as best she might.”
Hester, knowing firsthand the sorrow of banishment and betrayal, welcomed graciously all who came. The ugliness inflicted upon her changed her, yes, but only in ways that made her 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 open, not 𝐥𝐞𝐬𝐬.
“The letter was the symbol of her calling. Such helpfulness was found in her—so much power to do, and power to sympathize—that many people refused to interpret the scarlet A by its original signification. They said that it meant Able; so strong had it made Hester Prynne.”
Later in life, Hester could have removed the letter, but she chose to keep it, freshly aware of, and profoundly grateful for, all it had produced.
There’s a lesson there, friends.
Gratitude. Empathy. Growth. Strength. Purpose. Sanctification.
𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐥𝐞𝐠𝐚𝐜𝐲 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐥𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫.
𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐟𝐢𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐥𝐨𝐰.
Hester, at least, merited her letter. I did not. I, nevertheless, thank God for it. He did not ordain it, but He has made great use of it, wasting nothing, and repeatedly displaying His transcendent power to bring good from bad.
Hawthorne writes, “She had not known the weight until she felt the freedom.”
Hester chose to wear the scarlet letter although she no longer had to, because she knew that her freedom was not tied to its removal, but its 𝐚𝐜𝐜𝐞𝐩𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞.
That is the key.
So, no matter which letters are hurled your way, or even how many there are, embrace them all, for the manifold joy and benefit that have been yours in the wearing.
God is up to something in your brokenness and pain. He is. Every story ever written was composed with 𝐥𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬, so hand Him yours—all of them—the ones that have wounded and mischaracterized you—the ones that have robbed you of your peace—the ones you wish you could forget—and let Him redeem them. Hand them over and then rejoice as you await the masterpiece to come, knowing it wouldn’t have been possible without them.
“To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He might be glorified.”
~ 𝐈𝐬𝐚𝐢𝐚𝐡 𝟔𝟏:𝟑