---
title: Improvement Era
description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930.
authors:
  - Grace Ingles Frost
collections:
  - periodicals
tags:
  - magazine
  - improvement-era
periodical: Improvement Era
volume: 8
number: 9
published: 1905-07
publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations
publisher_place: Salt Lake City
language: en
type: magazine
reference: 'Grace Ingles Frost, "Be Thankful for the Shadows," *Improvement Era* 8, no. 9 (July 1905): 663.'
source:
  url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0809unse
  transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers.
  identifier: improvementera0809unse
start_page: 663
end_page: 663
rights:
  status: public-domain
  basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1905-07)
  source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0809unse
  publication_year: 1905
  note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1905, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright.
---

# Be Thankful for the Shadows

<!-- page:663 -->

A MOTHER'S LETTERS TO HER MISSIONARY SON.                            663
     All join in love.       Mattie was here today, and I read your last
letter to her.She wants to be remembered to you.
     Your father says to tell you not to spend too much time
reading the home papers, six times, he says, laughingly, is enough.
For the more you read about home and think about                it,   the more
inclined you will be to get homesick.
                                            Love always ffom
                                                     Your Mother.
   Salt   Lake City, Utah.
                 BE THANKFUL FOR THE SHADOWS.
                            (For the Improvement Era.)
                    Why should we ask the Father
                          For only days of light?
                    When the clouds have cleared away,
                          The sun shines forth more bright.
                     IfGod sends only sunshine,
                      Our sight may grow so dim,
                    We cannot see the pathway
                          To follow after him.
                    Walk through a flower garden,
                      Which blossoms there first fade?
                    Those where the sun is brightest,
                          Not those at times in shade.
                     Be thankful for the shadows
                       As well as for the Fght,
                     Lest through excessive brightness,
                          The soul receive a blight.
                                                       Grace Ingles Frost.
Salt Lake City, Utah,