The length of a person’s life is not as important as what he or she does with that life.
Grover Comstock, the son of a Baptist pastor, was born on this day in 1809. He was not born again until 1831 when the Lord blessed the city of Rochester, New York, with a powerful revival. Immediately, Grover’s thoughts turned to evangelism and missions. Shortly after that, in Bible school he met and married Sarah Davis. Then on June 30, 1834, the couple joined twelve other missionaries on board a ship bound for Burma. For some time they settled on an island just off the coast and from the town of Ramree, Missionary Comstock used small native boats to visit villages. He said that his friends would cover one end of the canoe-like craft with leaves to provide a place to sleep and protection from the sun, creating a room “not much larger than an American oven,” and probably like an oven in other ways. Some souls began to come to Christ through the Comstock’s ministry. But life was hard in Burma: two of the couple’s children passed away, and then in 1843 Sister Comstock died of dysentery. A year later Brother Grover Comstock followed her. The parents were both about the age of thirty-two.
Some might say that such short lives were wasted. What might the Comstocks have done in a comfortable church back in America? No one can know for sure. But if there was just a single eternal soul brought to Christ in Burma through their ministries, weren’t their sacrifices worth the price?