1988 May/June issue Part 6

Prayer

May He support us all the day long until
the shadows lengthen,
evening comes,
the busy world is hushed,
the fever of life is over,
and our work is done.
Then, in His mercy, may He give us
A safe lodging,
A holy rest,

And peace at last.

(Cardinal Newman)

1988 May/June issue Part 5

Disruptions, delays, inconveniences

Emily, wife of America’s first foreign missionary, Adoniram Judson, wrote home from Moulmein, Bruma, in January 1947:

“This is taking care of teething babies, and teaching natives to darn stockings and talking English back end foremost... in order to get an eatable dinner, is really a very odd sort of business for Fanny Forester (her penname- she was a well-known New England writer before marrying Judson)....But I begin to get reconciled to my minute cares.” She was ambitious for “higher and better things,” but was enabled to learn that “the person who would do great things well must practice daily on little ones; and she who would have the assistance of the Almighty in important acts , must be daily and hourly accustomed to consult His will in the minor affairs of life.”

  About eighty years ago, when James O. Fraser was working as a solitary missionary in Tengyueh, southwest China, his situation was, “in every sense, ‘against the grain.’” He did not enjoy housekeeping and looking after premises. He found the houseboy irritable and touchy, constantly quarreling with the cook. Endless small items of business cluttered up the time he wanted for language study, and he was having to learn to be “perpetually inconvenienced” for the sake of the gospel. He wrote after some weeks alone:

1988 May/June issue Part 4

The Dangers of Sharing

There is a notion abroad today that we must all be "open" and "transparent," put all our cards on the table, hold nothing back. This, it is claimed, is real fellowship, what John meant by "walking in the light." Is it? Only God can search out the secret places of the heart. Therefore it is only as we draw near to Him that we can draw near to each other without harm. I think we've got it backwards when we suppose that by barging into one another's souls we somehow get closer to God. If we are given the pooprtunity to know anothers heart, we must be careful not to "foster the self that in a brother's bosom gnaws," as George MacDonald puts it (Diary of an Old Soul, November 9), but always hold that one to the very highest. This is love. This is the kind of sharing which will strengthen and cheer.

1988 May/June issue Part 3

Rent-A-Mom
Kathy Lewis sent me this advertisement that appeared in her local paper in California.

She writes: “The most distressing part of this ‘service’ is the implication that Mom can so easily be replaced, particularly when she ‘just doesn’t want to do it.’ What a shame that so many are missing the true joy of mothering which is daily, unconditional, and self-giving.
  I am so thankful that during the years when my three daughters were small I could not afford frequent childcare. There were no day care centres. I was home every day and in our daily routine there was such security and comfort. Of course there were days when I was exhausted, bored, sick, irritated, or discouraged. But there was no alternative; I did whatever was next on the list of sheer survival instinct. Most days were a happy blur of story books, peanut butter sandwiches cut into triangles and soup (with jelly spread on crackers is they had been extra good), tricycles, and long peaceful naps. (No matter how hectic your day may seem now, the time will come- we promise!- when they’ll appear “a happy blur.” EE)
  The long days of mothering small children now seem to me to have been short and fleeting. As God has promised, faithfulness to this calling has brought rewards beyond my deepest longings. The future is bright for my dear ones as they near the time of becoming mothers too, but there are days when I would give a lot to see those precious little faces and bury my face deep in the neck of a sleepy girl again.”

One of the slick catalogues which pour into my mailbox contained recently a “survival manual” entitled Where’s Mom Now That I Need Her? I lament the need of such a book for the hundreds of thousands of children who must come home from school to an empty house and need help in surviving on their own- with recipes, remedies, first aid, laundry, bike care, and “helpful hints.”
  For you mothers who are there for your children, stick with it, for God’s sake, no matter what pressures are brought to bear upon you. And for you who want to be there and so far have not found a way to do it, ask God to show you if He has one. Trust Him and do whatever He says.

1988 May/June issue Part 2

A Child’s Obedience

Question from a young mother: How can I train my twenty-month-old to come to me? How many times do I say “come here” before I go and grab him?

  The very first time you tell a child to do or not to do something (come here, don’t touch, sit still) (1) make sure you have the child’s attention; (2) look him straight in the eye;  (3)speak in an even, normal tone, address him by name, give the command; (4) give him a few seconds to let the message sink in; (5) speak his name again and ask, “What did I say?” Since training should begin long before talking, he will not be able to verbalize the answer, but he should obey. Children are always way ahead of their parents’ idea of what they can understand. (6) Tell him once more “Mama said Come, Andrew.” If he does not obey, spank him. After the first time or two of practice, spank after you spoke once.

  To make a habit of repeating commands is to train the child you never mean what you say the first time. If the first lesson in obedience is carried out as above, the child learns quickly that you mean exactly what you say. I know it works- my parents taught us this way, and I watched them train my younger sister and brothers. I found that it worked with Valerie.

  If you run after the child and physically force him to do what you say (e.g. grab him when he doesn’t come, take something away when he touches it), you are training him not to pay attention to your words. He knows he can get away with anything until forcibly strained.

  Now about spanking. The book of proverbs speaks of the “rod of discipline,” (Proverbs 22:15) and says, “The rod and reproof give wisdom, but a child left to himself brings shame to his mother” (Prov 29:15). “He who spares the rod hate his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him” (Prov 13:24). My mother used a very thin little switch from a bush in the backyard. We knew there was one in every room, readily available to administer a couple of stings to our legs if we disobeyed. Valerie keeps a thin wooden paint stirrer handy in the house, and also in her purse. One or two firm “paddles” on a small outstretched hand are language that an under-two child understands very clearly.

1988 May/June issue Part 1

The Escalation of evil

We sometimes smile at those who sentimentally imagine that the past was not nearly so bad as the present. Were they really “the good old days”? A study conducted by the Fullerton, California, police department and the California department  of education cannot be dismissed as sentimentality.  Compare the leading school discipline problems (Time, February 1, 1988).

1940's                                                                                   1980's
Talking                                                                                 Drug use
Chewing gum                                                                    Alcohol abuse
Making noise                                                                    Pregnancy
Running in hallways                                                       Suicide
Getting out of place in line                                         Rape
Wearing improper clothing                                        Robbery
Not putting paper in wastebasket                           Assault
                                                                                               Burglary
                                                                                               Arson
                                                                                               Bombings

1988 March/April issue Part 4

The Little Red Notebook
several readers wanted more from the little red notebook i found among my mother's things when she died last year. Someone wanted prayers for grandchildren. Here is one from mother's notebook;

Holy Father, in Thy mercy, hear our

anxious prayer;

Keep our loved, ones now far distant,

'neath Thy care.

Jesus Saviour, let Thy presence be their

light and guide;

Keep, O keep them, in their weakness,

at Thy side.

When in sorrow, when in danger, when

in loneliness,

In Thy love look down and comfort

their distress.

May the joy of Thy salvation be their

strength and stay,

May they love and may they praise Thee

day by day.

Holy Spirit; let Thy teaching sanctify

their life;

Send Thy grace that they may conquer

in the strife.

Father, Son and Holy Spirit, God the One

in Three,

Bless them, guide them, save them,

keep them near to Thee.

(I.S. Stevenson, 1869)

1988 March/April issue Part 3

The Ultimate Contradiction- Part 2

When we learned recently from dear friends that they had lost their baby, this is what I wrote to them (I’ve been asked to print it here for others who are bereaved);

“Your little note was waiting for us when we returned yesterday from Canada. How our hearts went running to you, weeping with you, wishing we could see your faces and tell you our sympathies. Yet it is ‘no strange thing’ that has happened to you, as Peter said in his epistle (1 Peter 4:12)- it gives you a share in Christ’s suffering. To me this is one of the deepest but most comforting of all the mysteries of suffering. Not only does He enter into grief in the fullest understanding, suffer with us and for us, but in the very depths of sorrow he allows us, in His mercy, to enter into His, give us a share, permits us the high privilege of ‘filling up’ that which is lacking (Colossians 1:24) in His won. He makes, in other words, something redemptive out of our broken hearts if those hearts are offered up to Him. We are told that He will never despise a broken heart. It is an acceptable sacrifice when offered wholly to Him for His transfiguration. Oh, there is so much for us to learn here, but it will not be learned in a day or week. Level after level must be plumbed as we walk with the Shepherd, and He will do His purifying, purging, forging, shaping work in us, that we may be shaped to the image of Christ Himself. Such shaping takes a hammer, a chisel, and a file- painful tools, a painful process.

Your dear tiny Laura is in the Shepherd’s arms. She will never have to suffer. She knew only the heaven of the womb (the safest place in all the world- apart from the practice of abortion) and now she knows the perfect heaven of God’s presence. I’m sure that your prayer for both your children has been that God would fulfil His purpose in them. It is the highest and best we can ask for our beloved children. He has already answered that prayer for Laura.

1988 March/April issue Part 2

The Ultimate Contradiction- Part 1.
Two people were walking along a stony road long ago. They were in deep conversation about everything that had happened. Things could not have been worse, it seemed, and I suppose the road was longer and dustier and stonier than it had ever been to them, though they had travelled it many times. As they trudged along, trying to make sense out of the scuttling of their hopes, a stranger joined them and wanted to know what they were talking about.

1988 March/April issue Part 1

If the heart wonders or is distracted, bring it back to the point quite gently and replace it tenderly in its Master's presence. And even if you did nothing during the whole of your hour but bring your heart back and place it again in our Lord's presence, thought it went away every time you brought it back, you hour will be very well employed.

St. Francis de Sales

1988 January/February issue Part 4

A Small Section of the Visible Course.

... All of the past, i believe, is a part of God's story of each child of His- a mystery of love and sovereignty, written before the foundation of the world, never a hindrance to the task He has designed for us, but rather the very preparation suited to our particular personality's need.
   "How can that be?" ask those whose heritage has not been a godly one as mine was, whose lives have not been peaceful. "It is the glory of God to conceal a thing" (Proverbs 52:2). God conceals much that we do not need to know, yet we do not know that He calls His own sheep by name and leads them out. When does that begin? Does the Shepherd overlook anything that the sheep need?
  William Kay's note on Psalm 73:22 is this: "Though i was supported by Thee and living 'with Thee' as thy guest, yet i was insensible to Thy presence;- intent only on a small section of the visible course of things;- like the irrational animals that are ever looking down at the ground they are grazing."
  "Yet i am perpetually with Thee, Thou hast laid hold on my right hand," wrote the psalmist. "Thou wilt guide me with Thy counsel and afterwards receive me in glory... And as for me, nearness to God is my good; i have put my trust in the Lord God." (Psalm73:22, 23, 24, 28)

1988 January/February issue Part 3

The Most Creative Job in the World
It involves:

taste                                               fashion

decorating                                     recreation

education                                      transportation

psychology                                    romance

cuisine                                           designing

literature                                        medicine

hanidcraft                                      art

horticulture                                    economics

government                                   community relations

pediatrics                                       geriatrics

entertainment                                maintenance

purchasing                                     direct mail

law                                                 accounting

religion                                           energy

... and managment.
Anyone who can handle all those must be somebody special.
She is.
She's a homemaker.

(Message published in the Wall Street Journal by United Technologies Corp., Hartfor CT 06101; reprinted by permission.)

1988 January/February issue Part 2

Why is God doing this to me?

An article appeared in the National Geographic fourteen years ago which has affected my thinking ever since. "The Incredible Universe," by Jenneth F. Weaver and James P. Blair, included this pargraph:

  "How can the human mind deal with the knoweledge that the farthest object we can see in the universe is perhaps ten billion light years away? Imagine that the thickness of this page represents the distance from the earth to the sun (93,000,000 miles, or about eight light minutes). Then the distance to the nearest star (4-1/3 light years) is a 310-mile stack, while the edge of the known universe is not reached until the pile of paper is 31,000,000 miles high, a third of the way to the sun."

  Thirty-one million miles. That's a very big stack of paper. By the time i get to the thirty-one-and-a-half million i'm lost- aren't you? I read somewhere that our galaxy is one (only one) of perhaps ten billion.

1988 January/February issue Part 1

Prayer

O Lord my God, make me obedient without argument, poor without embarrassment, chaste without prudishness, patient without complaint, humble without hypocrisy, joyful without silliness, mature without grouchiness, eager without thoughtlessness, reverent without servility, truthful without guile, forceful without presumption, willing to correct my brother without superiority, and to help him by word and deed without pretence.

(St. Thomas Aquinas)

1987 November/December issue Part 2

A New Thanksgiving

Those who call Thanksgiving "Turkey Day," I suppose, take some such view as this:

  Unless we have Someone to thank and something to thank Him for, what's the point of using a name that calls up pictures of religious people in funny hats and Indians bringing corn and squash? Christians, I hope, focus on something other than a roasted bird. We do have Someone to thank and a long list of things to thank Him for, but sometimes we limit our thanksgiving merely to things that look good to us. As our faith in the character of God grows deeper we see that heavenly light is shed on everything- even on suffering- so that we are enabled to thank Him for things we would never have thought of before. The apostle Paul, for example, saw even suffering itself as a happiness (Col 1:24, NEB).

  I have been thinking of something that stifles thanksgiving. It is the spirit of greed- the greed of doing, being, and having.

1987 November/December issue Part 1

Splendor in the Ordinary

For the encouragement of those whose work seems humdrum, here is what St. Francis DeSales said: "The King of Glory rewards His servants not according to the dignity of their office, but according to the love and humility with which they carry it out."

  In the same spirit are these paragraphs from the book Splendor in the Ordinary (out of print, alas), by Thomas Howard (who has taught me many things, even though he is my brother): "[In households] the idea is that in our daily routines we are playing out the Drama of Charity, which eludes politics and its calculations. The commonplaces of household life are parts of the rite in which we celebrate the mystery of Charity-and it is indeed a mystery, full of outrageous absurdities like obedience being a form of liberty, and self-denial a form of self-discovery, and giving a form of receiving, and service a form of exaltation. Politics boggles at mysteries like this; but in Christian house-holds the hunch is that they are all clues to what the Real Drama is about.
  "For when the Drama of Charity was played out on the stage of our history, we saw these absurdities disclosed in their true colors. Here we saw Love incarnate in the form of a servant; here we heard the disquieting doctrine of exchanged life proclaimed all over the hills of Judaea; here we witnessed the humility of the virgin mother exalted high above the station of patriarchs and prophets, and the heroic silence of her spouse lauded for all time. Here we saw a gibbet transfigured into a throne, defeat into victory, death into life, and submission into sovereignty. And here we learned of the Holy Ghost himself whose service is to glorify, not himself, dread and mighty as he is, but this incarnate Love humbled below the meanest of men. A riot of self-giving and glory, humiliation and exaltation, service and majesty. Nonsense by any political calculating; but the mystery of Charity before our eyes.

  "It is this nonsense that we come upon in our kitchens. For the service in this room is either pointless thralldom, or it is as close to the center of the Real Drama as any rite in the whole household. For it is, precisely, service; and service, occurring as it does always for the sake of something else, is a form of humility and self-giving; and humility and self-giving have been disclosed in the Christian Drama as being at the heart of the matter."

1987 September/October issue Part 4

Prayer

Loving Lord and Heavenly Father, I offer up today all that I am, all that I have, all that I do, to be Yours today and Yours forever. Give me grace, Lord, to do all that I know of Your holy will. Purify my heart, sanctify my thinking, correct my desires. Teach me, in all of today's work and trouble and joy, to respond with honest praise, simple trust, and instant obedience, that my life may be in truth a living sacrifice, by the power of Your Holy Spirit and in the name of Your Son Jesus Christ, my Master and my all. Amen.

1987 September/October issue Part 3

Gratitude-Even in Death

Eileen Longo, of Warren, New Jersey, writes of her marriage to a man with leukemia who was given two years to live. For ten healthy years after that prognosis "he lived for God radically- there couldn't be a shadow of grasping this life, since it was all so obviously a daily gift from the Lord." When their daughters were five, three, and nine months, the leukemia returned. On the evening of the fourth day Eileen left the hospital, "full of joy and excitement, caught up in a work of God. I knew either he would be healed or taken to Glory, either one a tremendous miracle. So I wasn't shocked when I got the call at 1 A.M. Bill was gone. I simply threw myself into the arms of my Father in Heaven, in gratitude for all the years and the rich life He had given us, so undeserved. God's mercy and love have filled me from that moment. It is nearly one and a half years, and there still is no room for anything but gratitude because of how good God is. To Him be the glory!"

  Sometimes we puzzle over how on earth we are supposed to obey the command, "In everything give thanks." Eileen's testimony may show the answer. She wasn't thankful for leukemia- that's the work of the enemy-but she found far greater things to thank God for.

1987 September/October issue Part 2

What to Do When Your Children Grow Up

Thoughts from my mother's little red Quiet Time notebook: "Job 1:5-'When a round of feasts was finished, job sent for his children and sanctified them, rising early in the morning and sacrificing a whole-offering for each of them; for he thought that they might . . . have . . . committed blasphemy in their hearts. This he always did.'

  "When one's children are adults, what is the role of the parent? "They seldom come to us for help or advice. It is wonderful if they do. Then, out of our experience and perhaps the spiritual wisdom God may give us, we may be able to give wise counsel. Seldom, if ever, do they ask advice concerning the training of children. It is a blessing when they ask for prayer for themselves or their children, and this is usually the sole recourse of the grandparent, except for one tremendous duty: we can do as job did. We have the One great Sacrifice to plead-the blood of Jesus Christ! May we be faithful in this duty and privilege for those we love!!"

1987 September/October issue Part 1

The Gospel According to Sloat

Psychologist Donald Sloat, author of The Dangers of Growing Up in a Christian Home, made some breathtaking assertions in an interview for InterVarsity magazine last spring. I scurried to my typewriter to protest to the powers that be, but I can't leave it at that. I met a couple who were badly confused by Sloat's statements, which they had studied earnestly, hoping to find some light for a dark time they are having with a defiant fifteen-year-old.

  God has promised that for the upright (those whose lives are characterized by obedience) light will arise out of darkness. The world, however, is continually coming at us with notions utterly at variance with God's light. We must test every notion by the straightedge of Scripture.

  I think I know what Dr. Sloat meant, and I am terribly aware of the great gulfs fixed between what one believes, what one actually says, and what an interviewer may record (not to mention what the reader or hearer may think was said). I can only take the words of the interview as it appeared.

  Sloat's remarks confuse the nature of the true Christian home with its sad imitations, true Christian faith with a vague and often Pharisaical travesty. He has discarded the baby with the bathwater. This is a serious mistake for one who is taken for a godly counselor. False premises lead to false conclusions in diagnosis and false prescriptions. Note the following:

1987 July/August issue Part 5

Another Way

Following a women's meeting in Florida I was sitting at a table out under the trees autographing books. A young woman waited politely until I was free, then, with a shining face, told me this story. She had been working, but came to the conviction that she ought to be at home with her children. This, it seemed, was quite impossible. Her husband insisted she work because they needed the money. "Last week," she said, "he was away for three days. I set asidethose days to fast and pray, asking God to change my husband's mind and to show us another way." A day or two later, without preliminary, her husband said, "Honey, we must find a way to enable you to quit working."  Within one week they had sold their house and found another with equal floor space at a much lower price.

  May her testimony spur others to ask God if He might show them another way. "Your Heavenly Father knows that you need these things."

Those Mighty Feathers

My friend and spiritual mother Katherine Morgan, who, though pushing eighty, is still a missionary in Colombia, writes: "Many of you are concerned with our safety here in Bogota where people are shot every day in the streets. A magistrate of the Supreme Court was assassinated about five blocks from us the other morning But I can say I have never felt safer anywhere than each day as I go about my duties. Mr. George Schultz came down from Washington to the inauguration of our new president and had about twenty bodyguards with him. But according to Psalm 91 we have a greater body-guard which is the shadow of the Almighty and His 'feathers.' Shadow and feathers are mightier than human arms. Some time ago a missionary friend of mine was coming home from the store carrying one baby and leading the other by the hand when a man approached her with a long knife pointed right at her. He demanded her purse. She shouted at him, 'Leave me alone. I am covered with feathers!' Giving her one terrified look, he fled."

1987 July/August issue Part 4

Homeschooling

My daughter Valerie Shepard homeschools three of her five children (the other two are pre-school age). Her son Walter, the oldest, attended kindergarten and first grade before the decision was made to homeschool. Some of you have asked what advantages homeschooling offers, so I asked Val what she has discovered. Here is her answer:

1987 July/August issue Part 3

Nothing is lost

A pastor's wife once asked, "When one witnesses a work he has poured his life into 'go up in flames' (especially if he is not culpable), is it the work of Satan or the hand of God?"

  Often it is the former, always it is under the control of the latter. In the biographies of the Bible we find men whose work for God seemed to be a flop at the time- Moses' repeated efforts to persuade Pharaoh, Jeremiah's pleas for repentance, the good king Josiah's reforms, rewarded in the end by his being slain by a pagan king. Sin had plenty to do with the seeming failures, but God was then, as He is now, the "Blessed Controller of All Things" (1 Tm 6:15, J.B. Phillips). He has granted to us human beings responsibility to make choices and to live with the consequences. This means that everybody suffers- sometimes for his own sins, sometimes for those of others.

  There are paradoxes here which we cannot plumb. But we can always look at the experiences of our own lives in the light of the life of our Lord Jesus. How shall we learn to "abide" (live our lives) in Christ, enter into the fellowship of His sufferings, let Him transform our own? There is only one way. It is by living each event, including having things "go up in flames," as Christ lived: in the peace of the Father's will. Did His earthly work appear to be a thundering success? He met with argument, unbelief, scorn in Pharisees and others. Crowds followed Him- not because they wanted His Truth, but because they liked handouts such as bread and fish and physical healing. His own disciples were "fools and slow of heart to believe." (why didn't Jesus make them believe? For the reason given above.) These men who had lived intimately with Him, heard His teaching for three years, watched His life and miracles, still has little idea what He was talking about, on the evening before His death. Judas betrayed Him. The rest of them went to sleep when He asked them to stay awake. In the end they all forsook Him and fled. Peter repented with tears, and later saw clearly what had taken place. In his sermon to the Jews of Jerusalem (Acts 2:23, JBP) he said, "This man, who was put into your power by the pre-determined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed up and murdered But God would not allow the bitter pains of death to touch him. He raised him to life again-and there was nothing by which death could hold such a man."

  There is nothing by which death can hold any of His faithful servants, either. Settle it, once for all-you CAN NEVER LOSE WHAT YOU HAVE OFFERED TO CHRIST. It's the man who tries to save himself (or his reputation or his work or his dreams of success or fulfillment) who loses. Jesus gave us His word that if we'd lose our lives for His sake, we'd find them.

1987 July/August issue Part 2

A Dozen Ways to Make Yourself and Quite a Few others Miserable

1. Count your troubles, name them one by one-at the breakfast table, if anybody will listen, or as soon as possible thereafter.

2. Worry every day about something. Don't let yourself get out of practice. It won't add a cubit to your stature but it might burn a few calories.

3. Pity yourself. If you do enough of this, nobody else will have to do it for you.

4. Devise clever but decent ways to serve God and mammon. After all, a man's gotta live.

5. Make it your business to find out what the Joneses are buying this year and where they're going. Try to do them at least one better even if you have to take out another loan to do it.

6. Stay away from absolutes. It's what's right for you that matters. Be your own person and don't allow yourself to get hung up on what others expect of you.

7. Make sure you get your rights. Never mind other people's. You have your life to live, they have theirs.

8. Don't fall into any compassion traps-the sort of situation where people can walk all over you. If you get too involved in other people's troubles, you may neglect your own.

9. Don't let Bible reading and prayer get in the way of what's really relevant-things like TV and newspapers. Invisible things are eternal. You want to stick with the visible ones-they're where it's at now.

10. Be right, and be sure to let folks know it. If you catch yourself in the wrong, don't breathe it to a soul.

11. Review daily the names of people who have hurt, wronged, or insulted you. Keep those lists up to date, and think of ways to get even without being thought of as unreasonable, uncivilized, or unchristian.

12. Never forgive a wrong. Clutch it forever, and you'll never be unemployed. Resentment is a full-time job.

1987 July/August issue Part 1

Draw Near That Fire
The following was written by my mother, Katherine Gillingham Howard, found in her little prayer notebook after her death.

How cold the heart and stony-like one dead-

On which the beams of God's own Word,

In daily meditation, fail to shed their warmth.

If through neglect, we draw not near that fire,

At first, unnoticed, creeps a shivering chill.

But when, neglected, lies the Book for days,

That chill takes hold, till the whole soul is ill.

And yet when once again we seek God's Word,

With empty heart and soul and deep despair,

In faithfulness He meets us. Praise the Lord!

And pours in oil and wine on all our care. .

1987 May/June issue Part 3

Prayers

The following suggestions for intercession are abridged from Lancelot Andrewes' Private Devotions:

for those who have a claim on me

from kinship,-for brothers and sisters, that God's blessing may be on them and on their children;

or from benefits conferred,-that Thy recompence may be on all who have benefitted me, who have ministered to me in spiritual, material, or physical things;

or from trust placed in me,- those whom I have educated, employed, served, influenced;

or from natural kindness,-for all who love me, though I know them not;

or from Christian love,-for those who hate me without cause, or even on account of truth and righteosuness;

or from neighbourhood,-those who dwell near me;

or from promise,-for all whom I have promised to remember in prayers;

or from mutual office,-for all who remember me in their prayers and ask of me the same;

or from stress of engagements,-for all who for any sufficient cause fail to call upon Thee.

1987 May/June issue Part 2

My Mother

She was Kath to her close frinds, Dearie to my father, and always Mother (never Mom) to her six children. She held us on her lap when we were small and rocked us, sang to us, and told us stories. We begged for the ones about "when you were a little girl." Katharine Gillingham was born June 21, 1899 in Philadelphia. We loved hearing about the butler who did tricks for her behind her parents' backs and about the alarmed postman who rushed to rescue the screaming child with her arm down a dog's throat until he heard what she was saying: "He's got my peanut!" In 1922 she married Philip E. Howard Jr., a man who, because he had lost an eye in an accident, felt sure no woman would have him. They worked for five years with the Belgian Gospel Mission, then returned to the States when he became associate editor (later editor) of The Sunday School Times. Mother's course was finished on February 7. She was up and dressed as usual in the morning at the Quarryville Presbyterian Home in Pennsylvania, made it to lunch with the help of her walker, lay down afterwards, having remarked rather matter-of-factly to someone that she knew she was dying, and wondered where her husband was. Later in the afternoon cardiac arrest took her, very quietly.

  Each of us (in chronological order) took a few minutes at the funeral to speak of some aspect of Mother's character. Phil spoke of her consistency and unfailing availability as a mother; of her love for Dad, ("He was always my lover," she said). I recalled how she used to mop her eyes at the table, laughing till she cried at some of my father's bizarre descriptions, or even at his oft-told jokes; how she was obedient to the New Testament pattern of godly womanhood, including hospitality. Dave talked about her unreserved surrender to the Lord, first of herself (at Stony Brook conference in New York), and then (painfully, years later at Prairie Bible Institute in Canada) of her children; of how, when we left home, she followed us not only with prayer but, for forty years with hardly a break, with a weekly letter. Ginny told how Mother's example taught her what it means to be a lady; how to discipline herself, her children, her home. Tom remembered the books she read to us (A.A. Milne, Beatrix Potter, Sir Knight of the Splendid Way, for example), and the songs she sang as she rocked each of us little children ("Safe in the Arms of Jesus," "Go Tell Aunt Nancy") shaping our vision of life. Jim pictured her sitting in her small cane rocker in the bay window of her bedroom after the breakfast dishes were done, sitting quietly before the Lord with the Bible, Daily Light, and notebook.

  The last three years were sorrowful ones for all of us. Arteriosclerosis had done its work in her mind and she was confused and lonely ("Why hasn't Dad been to see me?" "He's been with the Lord for 23 years, Mother." "Nobody told me!"). Still a lady, she tried to be neatly groomed, always offered a chair to those who came. She had not lost her humor, her almost unbeatable skill at Scrabble, her ability to play the piano, sing hymns, and remember her children. But she wanted us to pray that the Lord would let her go Home, so we did.

  The funeral ended with the six of us singing "The Strife is O'er," then all family members, including our beloved aunts Alice and Anne Howard, sang "To God be the Glory." The graveside service closed with the doxology (the one with Alleluias). We think of her now, loving us with an even greater love, her poor frail mortality left behind, her eyes beholding the King in His beauty. "If you knew what God knows about death," wrote George MacDonald, "you would clap your listless hands."

1987 May/June issue Part 1

Serious Play, Careless Work

When I was a kid we rushed home every afternoon from school, burst into the house to make sure Mother was there where we wanted her to be (she was), and then collected the kids on the block to play Kick the Can or to build playhouses out of wooden greenhouse boxes. Equipment didn't cost us a cent. Adults didn't have to supervise us or drive us anywhere or coach us. We just played. We were kids, and we knew that after-school time was playtime-until it was time to work (practice the piano, set the table, clear the table, do homework).

  Something has gone badly awry. Educators have gotten terribly serious about play and terribly casual

1987 March/April issue Part 3

The Government Is on His Shoulders

The Orthodox Morning Prayer includes this petition: Teach me to treat all that comes to me throughout the day with peace of soul and with firm conviction that Your will governs all.

  I had thought of "all that comes to me" as coming from outside, that is, from the action of others. Today what came to me was the sudden sickening realization that I had. forgotten a speaking engagement last night. It was on my calendar but not in my engagement book. I had looked only at the latter.

  I did not treat this with peace of soul. The pastor was very gracious when I called. "God is in control," was his word of comfort. 

  Yes. He is still there in spite of my in-excusable failures. What destroyed my peace was not only the thought of those I had sinned against-their inconvenience, disappointment, offense but the thought of my reputation for faithfulness. I had to confess that subtle form of pride.

  Nothing that comes to me is devoid of divine  purpose. In seeking to see the whole with God's eyes, we can find the peace which human events so often destroy. He is the God who is able even to "restore ... the years which the swarming locust has eaten," (Joel 2:25, RSV) and to turn "the Vale of Trouble into the Gate of Hope"  (Hosea 2:15, NEB).

A Working Mother

"A few years ago,' writes a friend, "when faced with some rather large debts, Elaine wanted to earn a little money to help get the family out of the hole. She didn't want to leave the children, so even though her past work experience had been as a high school math teacher and computer programmer for IBM and Sylvania, she opted instead for a paper route! That meant that she had to leave at 3:30 each morning, seven days a week, for a couple of years, to deliver her papers. She was home again before breakfast and before Ed had to leave for work." Bravissima, Elaine!

1987 March/April issue Part 2

Matthew Henry on Child Training

When I was the newly widowed mother of a fourteen-month-old daughter, my mother sent me this quotation from Matthew Henry, an eighteenth century commentator whom my father had been reading aloud to her that morning in April, 1956:

"Proverbs 19:18, 'Chasten thy son while there is hope, and let not thy soul spare for his crying.'  Parents are here cautioned against a foolish indulgence of their children, that are untoward and viciously inclined, and that discover such an ill temper of mind as is not likely to be cured but by severity.

 

"1. Do not say that it is all in good time to correct them, no, as soon as ever there appears a corrupt disposition in them, check it immediately, before it takes root and is hardened into a habit. Chasten thy son while there is hope, for perhaps if he be let alone awhile, he will be past hope, and a much greater chastening will not do that which now a less would effect. It is easier plucking up weeds as soon as they spring up, and the bullock that is designed for the yoke should be betimes [before it is too late] accustomed to it

 

"2. Do not say that it is a pity to correct them, and, because they cry and beg to be forgiven, you cannot find it in your heart to do it. If the point will be gained without correction, well and good; but it often proves that your forgiving them once, upon a dissembled [pretended] repentance and promise of amendment, does but embolden them to offend again, especially if it be a thing in itself sinful, as lying, swearing, ribaldry, stealing or the like. In such a case put on resolution, and let not thy soul spare for his crying. It is better that he should cry under thy rod than under the sword of the magistrate or, which is more fearful, than under divine vengeance.

  The language of the eighteenth century sounds a bit stern. We rarely call our children "untoward and viciously inclined," but we see other people's children-in the supermarket, in church, in our own newly decorated living room-who fit that description exactly. Children need a rod, and they need it early. Not a big stick. My parents found that a thin eighteen-inch switch did the trick so long as it was applied at an early age, and immediately following the offense. It is important to note Henry's specifying "a thing sinful in itself." Punishment for such things should be different from correction for childish mistakes-spilled milk (have him clean it up if he's old enough), a forgotten chore (have him do that one plus another he doesn't usually have to do). One grandmother recently told my daughter a method of persuading children to eat what was put before them. When others had finished and a child was dawdling over his plate, she set a timer for five minutes. If the plate was not cleaned it went into the refrigerator to be presented at the beginning of the next meal. "Worked like a charm," she said.

1987 March/April issue Part 1

My Life for Yours

Ten years ago a young Canadian woman sat in the assembly hall at the University of Illinois in Urbana, along with 17,000 other students attending Inter-Varsity's missionary convention. She thrilled to the singing of the great hymns, led by Bernie Smith. She heard the speakers, "and I remember the incredible excitement and desire to know and serve God that I experienced at that time. Now I have walked through some deep waters, and I feel compelled to write to you," her letter to me said. She had

read two of my books just before the convention, and I happened to be among the speakers. Another was Helen Roseveare, author of Give Me This Mountain and other books. Barbara was especially moved by the thought of the cost of declaring God's glory. Her letter told me this story:

Three years after Urbana she married Gerry Fuller, "a wonderful man who demonstrated zeal for Christ, a passion for souls, a beautiful compassion for hurting, broken people who needed to know the healing love of Jesus Christ." Following seminary and student pastorates, he became a prison chaplain and an inner-city missionary. Then he married Barbara and together they worked in Saint John, New Brunswick, with street kids, ex-convicts, and glue-sniffers.

  The time came when Barbara saw Gerry seeking the Lord with such great intensity it made her question her own commitment to Christ. Was she prepared to die to self as he was? What was it that drove him to pray as he did-at least once until four in the morning? Was her own love for the Lord as deep as his, or was it perhaps shadowed by her love for her husband?

1987 January/February issue Part 3

God's Help for God's Assignment
Sometimes a task we have begun takes on seemingly crushing size, and we wonder what ever gave us the notion that we could accomplish it. There is no way out, no way around it, and yet we cannot contemplate actually carrying it through. The rearing of children or the writing of a book are illustrations that come to mind. Let us recall that the task is a divinely appointed one, and divine aid is therefore to be expected. Expect it! Ask for it, wait for it, believe that God gives it. Offer to Him the job itself, along with your fears and misgivings about it. He will not fail or be discouraged. Let his courage encourage you. The day will come when the task will be finished. Trust Him for it.
"For the Lord God will help me; therefore shall I not be confounded, therefore have I set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be ashamed" (Is 50:7 AVE.)

Readers Write"Your book A Lamp for My Feet was a big instrument in encouraging my husband this past three weeks or so. Our one and only daughter was married on Saturday, and he was very concerned over walking her down the long aisle (thirty-five seconds, actually, from start to finish, and then of greeting guests of whom he was sure he would forget the names. It was becoming a high anxiety day instead of a joy. He has been reading your book in the mornings, but stopped about two weeks ago on page 67, "God's Help for God's Assignment," and there he stayed. He reread it every day, to remind himself
of the truth in it. And not only was he not confounded or ashamed, but he had one of the happiest days of his life! Lives were touched through the ceremony and all the prayer that surrounded it. It was a 'Victory Day' in every way for us and our God."

1987 January/February issue Part 2

The Gift of Work

The principal cause of boredom is the hatred of work. People are trained from childhood to hate it. Parents often feel guilty about making children do anything but the merest gestures toward work. Perhaps the children are required to make their beds and, in a feeble and half-hearted fashion, tidy up their rooms once a month or so. But take full responsibility to clear the table, load the dishwasher, scrub the pots, wipe the counters? How many have the courage to ask this of a ten-year-old? It would be too much to ask of most ten-year-olds because parents have seriously asked nothing of them when they were two or three. Children quickly pick up the parents' negative attitudes toward work and think of it as something most sedulously to be avoided.

1987 January/February issue Part 1

Prayer Is Conflict

Prayer is no easy pastime. As I grow old I find that I am more conscious than ever of my need to pray, but it seems at the same time to become more of a struggle. It is harder to concentrate, for one thing. I was greatly helped by some private notes Amy Carmichel wrote to her "Family" (hundreds of children and their helpers, both Indian and European) in Dohnavur, South India, to help them prepare for a special day of prayer. She quoted Paul's letter to the Colossians.(2:1): "I would that ye knew what great conflict I have for you." He is referring at least in part to the conflict of prayer. The same verse is translated "how greatly I strive" in the Revised Version; "how deep is my anxiety" in J.B. Philips; and, in the Jerusalem Bible, "Yes, I want you to know that I do have to struggle hard for you ... to bind you together in love and to stir your  minds, so that your understanding may come to full development, until you really know God's secret in which all the jewels of wisdom and knowledge are hidden."

Here are Amy's notes:

With what do I struggle?

1. With all that says to me, what is the use of your praying? So many others, who know more of prayer than you do, are praying. What difference does it make whether you pray or not? Are you sure that your Lord is listening? Of course He is listening to the other prayers but yours are of such small account, are you really sure He is "bending His ear" to you?

2. With all that suggests that we are asked to give too much time to prayer. There is so much to do. Why set aside so much time just to pray?

3. With all that discourages me personally- perhaps the rememberance of past sin, perhaps spiritual or physical tiredness; with anything and everything that keeps me back from what occupied St. Paul so often-vital prayer.

What will help me most in this wrestle?

1. The certain knowledge that our insignificance does not matter at all, for we do not come to the Father in our own name but in the Name of His beloved Son. His ear is always open to that Name. Of this we can be certain.

2. The certain knowledge that this is Satan's lie; he is much more afraid of our prayer than our work. (This is proved by the immense difficulties we always find when we set ourselves to pray. They are much greater than those we meet when we set ourselves to work.)

3. Isaiah 44:22 and kindred words, with 1 John 1:9, meets all distress about sin. Isaiah 40:29-31 with 2 Corinthians 12:9,10 meets everything that spiritual or physical weariness can do to hinder. Psalm 27:8 with Isaiah 45:19 meets all other difficulties. And the moment we say to our God, "Thy face, Lord, will I seek," His mighty energies come to the rescue. (See Colossians 1:2, 9) Greater, far greater, is He that is in us than He that is against us. Count on the greatness of God. But are we to go on wrestling to the end?

No, there is a point to which we come, when, utterly trusting the promise of our Father, we rest our hearts upon Him. It is then we are given what St. Paul calls access with confidence (Eph 3:12). But don't forget that this access is by faith, not by feeling, faith in Him our living Lord; He who says "Come unto Me" does not push us away when we come. As we go on, led by the Holy Spirit who so kindly helps our infirmities, we find ourselves in 1 John 5:14, 15 and lastly in Philippians 4:6, 7. It is good to remember that immediate answer to prayer is not always something seen, but it is always inward peace.

  And if the day ends otherwise and we are discouraged? Then tell Him so, "nothing ashamed of tears upon His feet" [here she is quoting from F.W.H. Meyers's poem "St. Paul"]. Lord, Thou knowest all things. Thou knowest that I love Thee. "Yes, my child, I know." But don't settle down into an "it will never be different" attitude. It will be different if only in earnest we follow on to know the Lord.

1986 November/December issue Part 2

The Incarnation
That the Great Angel-blinding light should shrink
His blaze to shine in a poor Shepherd's eye;
That the unmeasur d God so lowe should sinke,
As Pris'ner in a few poor rags to lye,
That from his Mother's Breast he milke should drinke,
Who feeds with Nectar Heaven's faire family,
That a vile Manger his low Bed should prove,
Who in a Throne of stars Thunders above;
That he whom the Sun serves, should faintly peepe
Through clouds of Infant Flesh! That He, the old
Eternall Word should be a Childe, and weep;
that He who made the fire, should fear the cold,
That heaven's high Majesty His Court should Keepe
In a clay cottage, by each blast control'd;
That Glories self should serve our Griefs and feares,
And free Eternity submit to years,
Let our overwhelming wonder be.
(Richard Crashaw, 1613?-1649)

1986 November/December issue Part 1

The Mother of the Lord

We see her first, that little Mary (may I say little? I think she was a teenager), as a simple village girl in a poor home in an out-of-the-way place. She is bending over her work when suddenly the light changes. She raises her eyes. A dazzling stranger stands before her with a puzzling greeting. He calls her "most favored one" and tells her the Lord is with her. She is stunned. I don't believe her thought is of herself (Who am I? or Am I ever lucky!) Mary is troubled. She discerns at once that this has to do with things infinitely larger than herself, far beyond her understanding. What can it mean?

  The angel does not weigh in immediately with the stupendous message he has been sent to deliver. He first comforts her. "Don't be afraid, Mary." Mary. She is not a stranger to him. He is assuring her that he has the right person. He explains what she has been chosen for-to be the mother of the Son of the Most High, a king whose reign will be forever. She has one question now-not about the Most High, not about an eternal king-those are things too high for her-but motherhood is another matter. She understands motherhood, has been looking forward to it with great happiness. Her question is about that: "How can this be? I am still a virgin." He does not really explain. He simply states a mystery: "The power of the Most High will overshadow you." He goes on to tell her of another miraculous pregnancy, that of her old cousin Elisabeth, well past child-bearing age. "God's promises can never fail," he says. They won't fail for you, Mary. Rest assured.

1986 September/October issue Part 4

Readers Write:

Home Schooling

"We began home schooling this year and we love it," writes the mother of seven, ages three to fifteen. "It is helping us become a strong family as we work and learn together. My children are working harder, learning more, and developing good study habits. I need a lot of self-discipline in order to keep up with housework and do justice to the schooling, but it's an area I'm weak in and I appreciate the challenge." I have a hunch the lady is like the rest of us-not "born disciplined," just willing to ask for and receive the Lord's help.

Committed to Staying Home

"I am a seminary faculty wife and we live on almost poverty-level income, but no matter how great the sacrifice, I am committed 100% to being in the home. I can affirm that God honors this. We have few material possessions and have moved every year of our oldest child's life (seven. I've seen that we Christians can do many strange and unusual things (that the world and many Christians say cannot be done without the children's suffering-e.g. lack of possessions, permanent home, but with the family as #1 priority, a mother and father devoted to teaching the children sensitivity to life with God as center, God will bless and honor."

Wedding Rings

An elderly jeweler who had spent his life selling wedding rings in New York City to people in all walks of life was asked by a radio interviewer, "Do you see any difference between those who are buying rings now, and in the past?

  "Yes," was his prompt answer. "They are not so happy now. They live together first, and you do not see the happiness couples used to have when they came looking for a ring." He also noted that a large number of homosexuals are buying wedding rings.

  As Aristotle noted millenia ago, all men seek happiness. There are no exceptions. The difference between people is their definition. What's yours? How do you get there? John 13:17 (J.B. Phillips) has a good starter: "Once you have realised these things [the things the Master does], you will find your happiness in doing them." It seems that not many folks swallow that nowadays.

1986 September/October issue Part 3

What's Out There?

Last May Time magazine reported the discovery of the most massive object ever detected in the universe. The odd thing is nobody knows what it is. The Kitt Peak telescope picked up two quasars ("intensely bright bodies so far away that the light they emit travels for billions of years before reaching the earth") which seemed to be identical, an occurrence astronomers consider about as likely as finding two people with identical fingerprints. Something called a "gravitational lens" seemed to be bending the light (get that!) from a single quasar in such a way as to produce two identical images. Nothing astonishing about that- Einstein predicted it more than seventy years ago, and Arthur Eddington confirmed it a few years later.

  The great question is just exactly what is acting as a gravitational lens. Whatever it is, it has to have the mass of a thousand ( 1,000) galaxies. If it's a black hole, it is "at least a thousand times as large as the Milky Way (which consists of hundreds of billions of stars, including the sun)." Got that? I was bemused by the statement, "Astrophysicists find it difficult to explain how so tremendous a black hole could have formed." I guess they do. They're turning over a third possibility, much too arcane for me to peer into at all, but it has to do with the Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe.

  The most numbing of the facts of this story for me is that people go to such elaborate lengths to avoid mentioning one vastly prior fundamental possibility that (surely?) stares them in the face: creation. How much faith does it take to believe in God? Less, I venture to say-a great deal less-than to believe in the Unconscious generating the Conscious, Mindlessness creating Mind, Nothing giving birth to Something.

  What we know of God we have seen in His Son. He in whom we are asked to trust is Love, creative Love, thinking of us, I suppose, before He thought of gravitational lenses, giving Himself in sacrificial love long before He gave us His own breath of life-for the Lamb was slain before the foundation of the world.

 My Lord and my God. Forgive my faithlessness.

1986 September/October issue Part 2

Regrets

When my father was twelve years old he lost his left eye through disobedience. He had been forbidden to have firecrackers, so he sneaked out early in the morning of July 4, 1910, and, with the help of a neighboring farmer, set off some dynamite caps. A piece of copper penetrated his eye. Four years later my grandfather wrote this letter to my grandmother:

1986 September/October issue Part 1

Family Prayers

When I was a child my father and mother gathered the six of us in the living room after breakfast every morning for family prayers. First we sang a hymn, omitting none of the stanzas, accompanied on the piano by one of our parents. It was in this way that we learned a good bit of solid theology without any conscious effort. I must emphasize that it was hymns and old gospel songs we sang, not choruses or gospel ditties.

  There are some young families who still do this today. Judy Palpant of Spokane, who had heard me tell about our family prayers, writes, "Our children know that you were the inspiration for our three-year-old tradition of singing a hymn with our family devotions. We sing the same one each morning for a month. Tonight was the first time we tabulated the number of hymns we learned. The children were impressed! Let me assure you that many new words and truths have been impressed upon their hearts and minds as we have discussed the themes and words of our chosen hymn. Our many guests at breakfast (especially when we were in Africa) were often blessed by the singing of a hymn. My husband's parents were visiting us when we were singing 'Savior, Like a Shepherd Lead Us.' That hymn was sung at their wedding. During the Easter season one year we were learning 'When I Survey the Wondrous Cross on Which the Prince of Glory Died.' A missionary from Kenya underlined the words 'Prince of Glory' for us by sharing some insights with us. Thank you for this idea which has enriched our family as well as our guests."

1986 July/August issue Part 6

From My Journal

February 21, 1986, Autaugaville, Alabama. Beautiful guest cottage on the vast farm (cotton, pecans, hogs, cattle, etc.) of Buzz and Diane Wendland. Walt and Val (my daughter) and the four children are given another guest house. Lovely arrangement-all of us together, since Walt, Val, and I are speakers in the same conference.

  Walter (8) prayed last night as I was tucking him in, "Help Christiana (4) to have a sweet heart, and help Jim (22 months) to have an obedient heart, and thank you for Elisabeth (6)." (I'm quite sure I didn't think of my brothers as cause for thanskgiving when I was that age.) I asked Walter if he had read George MacDonald's At the Back of the North Wind. "Oh yes! It was so good- but I need to be more like Diamond. He was so kind."

1986 July/August issue Part 5

How to Read the Bible
"It shall greatly help thee to understand Scripture if thou mark not only what is spoken or written, but
of whom
to whom
with what words
at what time
where
to what intent
with what circumstances
considering what goeth before and followeth."

1986 July/August issue Part 4

How Things Go in the Carpentry Business

Jeff Becraft of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes writes, "In trying to recruit college athletes to serve as 'huddle leaders' at our summer camps I get a lot of responses such as,'Well, I'd like to go, but it depends on my job, and I'd like to do some traveling this summer ... etc.' "Jesus didn't say,'Well, I'm going to see how things go in the carpentry business and if things don't work out ... well, I might go save the world or something.' No.'We are going to Jerusalem.' This is no seeking of adventure. This is no wim. This is the will of God. That's all that matters."

1986 July/August issue Part 3

Jewels on the Sidewalk

My dear friend Katherine Morgan (the spiritual mother I wrote about in the May/June'85 issue) writes from Colombia:

"I have long felt that most of the family and social problems today can be traced directly to the fact of woman being out of her God-given place and consequently forcing man out of his. Most women cannot see the slightest thing wrong with it, and neither can their short-sighted husbands. Their argument here is that even with two salaries coming in, they can hardly scrape by. When one points out that half of the things they have they don't need, and that what they call their 'needs' are not nearly so great as their children's need of them as parents, they just look at one and look blank. I often ask mothers if they ever leave their color television set or their jewel box with the jewels in it out on the sidewalk when they go to work. They look astonished at the silly question. Then comes the query, 'Do your children compare in value with those things? Yet you leave them out all day on the street to have their morals, their culture, and their souls stolen by thieves who play in the neighborhood."'

1986 July/August issue Part 2

The Master's Will

Years ago I spent a night with a Welsh shepherd and his wife in a place called Llany-mawddwy. In that short time I saw many spiritual lessons enacted in the relationship between the shepherd, his dog, and his sheep. Mari, the shepherd's wife, told me many others.'

The following is from her book, In the Shelter of

the Fold.

  "A farmer from Peebles, Scotland, had bought some sheep from another farm a good way off. All by herself, his faithful dog started out to drive the sheep to her home on the other side of the mountain. Her master was tempted to linger awhile, over his pint, perhaps, with the vendor. When he returned home later that night, he realized to his consternation that the sheep and the dog had not arrived. In real anxiety he and his son set out in different directions to look for them. But what did the farmer see almost immediately coming to meet him but the flock of sheep with the dog behind them, and in her mouth a new-born puppy, still wet from the womb.

1986 July/August issue Part 1

Who Will Speak to My Husband?

(The following is an article by R.C. Sproul, first published in his magazine Tabletalk in February, 1986. Reprinted with permission.)

  “Wives, submit yourselves to your husbands” – this Biblical admonition is one of the most abused exhortations of Scripture. It is abused on two sides, twisted and distorted beyond recognition by both parties in the dispute.

1986 May/June issue Part 8

Passion and Purity

A twenty-six-year-old man preparing to be a missionary writes, "I wish someone had given me this book about six months ago because it would have saved me a lot of pain and anguish of heart. The principles you wrote about

1986 May/June issue Part 7

Question and Answer

Q. Is it a sin to ask God why?

A. It is always best to go first for our answers to Jesus Himself. He cried out on the cross, "My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?" It was a human

1986 May/June issue Part 6

He Is Able

For more than a century thousands of Christians have used a little book called Daily Light, a collection of scripture verses arranged for morning and evening reading, without commentary. The story of how it was put together perhaps gives us a clue as to why so many can testify to the amazing relevance of the selected passages to the needs of the very days for which they are given. The Bagster family of London collected the scripture passages and "prayed them into" the dates. Sometimes it did not seem clear which passages were to be used on a given date, so they proceeded to the next and later returned to fill in the page in question. The evening selection for March 8 is this:

I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able.

Able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think.

Able to make all grace abound toward you;

that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work.

1986 May/June issue Part 5

A Stone with a Broken Heart

"Do you know the lovely fact about the opal? That, in the first place, it is made only of desert dust, sand silica, and owes its beauty and preciousness to a defect. It is a stone with a broken heart. It is full of minute fissures which admit air, and the air refracts the light. Hence its lovely hues, and that sweet lamp of fire that ever burns at its heart, for the breath of the Lord God is in it. "You are only conscious of the cracks and desert dust, but so He makes His precious opal. We must be broken in ourselves before we can give back the lovely hues of His light, and the lamp in the temple can burn in us and never go out." Ellice Hopkins.

1986 May/June issue Part 4

Question and Answer
Q. Is it a sin to ask God why?
A. It is always best to go first for our answers to Jesus Himself. He cried out on the cross, "My  God, my God, why have You forsaken me?" It was a human cry, a cry of desperation, springing from his heart's agony at the prospect of being put into the hands of wicked men and actually becoming sin for you and me. We can never suffer anything like that, yet we do at times feel forsaken and cry, WHY, LORD?
The psalmist asked why. job, a blameless  man, suffering horrible torments on an ash heap, asked why. It does not seem to me to be sinful to ask the question. What is sinful is resentment against God and His dealings with us. When we begin to doubt His love and imagine that He is cheating us of something we have a right to, we are guilty as Adam and Eve were guilty. They took the snake at his word rather than God. The same snake comes to us repeatedly with the same suggestions: Does God love you? Does He really want the best for you? Is His word trustworthy? Isn't He cheating you?Forget His promises. You'd be better off if you do it your way.I have often asked why. Many things have happened which I didn't plan on and which human rationality could not explain. In the darkness of my perplexity and sorrow I have heard Him say quietly, TRUST ME. He knew that my question was not the challenge of unbelief or resentment. I have never doubted that He loves me, but I have sometimes felt like St. Teresa who said, "If this is the way You treat Your friends, no wonder You have so few!" Job was not, it seems to me, a very patient man. But he never gave up his conviction that he was in God's hands. God was big enough to take whatever job dished out (see Job 16 for a sample). Do not be afraid to tell Him exactly how you feel (He s already read your thoughts anyway). Don't tell the whole world. God can take it-others can't. Then listen for His answer. In the Newsletters of 1984 there were six scriptural answers to the question WHY-from 1 Peter 4:12-13; Romans 5:3-4; 2 Corinthians 12:9; John 14:31; Romans 8:17; Colossians 1:24. There is mystery, but it is not all mystery. Here are clear reasons.

1986 May/June issue Part 3

Prayer

"Order private devotions so that they become not arguments and causes of tediousness by their indiscreet length, but reduce your words into a narrow compass, still keeping all the matter; and what is cut off in the length of your prayers, supply in the earnestness of your spirit; for nothing is lost while the words are changed into matter and length of time into fervency of devotion. Break your office and devotion into fragments and make frequent returnings." Jeremy Taylor (seventeenth Century).

1986 May/June issue Part 2

Teaching children

How many times between the ages of three and ten do children have to answer the only two questions adults can think of asking them: How old are you? And What are you going to be when you grow up? The second question may seem innocuous, but is it? In the first place many children may be distressed at being required to make a choice which is far beyond them. In the second place it implies that the choice is theirs. This can lead to great confusion later on. The child will grow up physically but spiritually he will not have begun until he learns that Jesus not only died to save him from sin but in order that he should not live for himself but for Him who died. (see 2 Corinthians 5:15 and 1 John

1986 May/June issue Part 1

The Heavenliness of a Little Child

( The following is from an article by Walter D. Shepard Jr. in The Convenanter, monthly bulletin of Covenant Presbyterian Church in Laurel, Mississippi.)

Andrew Murray's book How to Raise Your Children for Christ comments on Matthew 18:4-5. The disciples had come to Jesus with a questions: Who is greatest in the kingdom of heaven? In answer Jesus called a little child and set him in the midst of them. In the Kingdom the humblest and most child like will be the highest.

1986 March /April issue Part 4

Letters to Readers

More then one letter has come from a reader of Passion and Purity telling me how much he or she "loved" the book, "really got a lot out of it," etc., and then proceeding to tell the long tale about how the old lifestyle still goes on, sleeping around, "but she's a really neat girl," or "he's a good Christian guy,"

1986 March/April issue Part 3

Backfire

The National Organization for womens "silent no more" campaign to encourage women who have had abortions to speak out may be backfiring as women who feel they were exploited and traumatized told their stories. The goal of the campaign is to counter the effects of Dr. Bernard Nathonson's dramatic film The Silent Scream which shows the real time ultra sound of an unborn baby recoilong and

There will be no postings on the Elisabeth Elliot Newsletter for the next 6 weeks:( ....you could read over the past newsletters or look at the list of helpful sites on the left of the page!

Don't forget your loyalty here!:)

God bless.

1986 March/April issue Part 2

Struggling with Self-Esteem

Who has been telling people that they should always be "struggling" with things? Who came up with this self esteem notion? Another letter (I'm amazed at how many I get about this business) says, "I'm so tired of not accepting myself. I can't seem to let go of my standards of what a woman should be." It looks to me as

1986 March/April issue Part 1

Mary Pride's Book

In the July/August and September/October Newsletters of 1985 I mentioned Mary Pride's book, The Way Home. I have received several inquiries as to my views on some of the things Mrs. Pride says. Other NL readers may have wondered about the same things, and lest my mentioning the book be taken as an unconditional endorsement let me say that I did not intend it to be quite unconditional. While I say Brava! to her disavowal of feminism, and applaud the strong encouragement to understanding motherhood as a high form of service to the Lord and her urging women to stay home, I recognize that she is both a young woman and a fairly new Christian. More years and more experience may modify some of her assertions. I would take issue with her on the following subjects:

1986 January/February issue Part 8

Letter from a Reader

"Several years ago you sent me the prayer of Betty Scott Stam on a small piece of parchment. It is a prayer of dedication and commitment and has turned my life around. I still carry it in my wallet and read it from time to time. I also share it with others whenever I feel it is appropriate. "I prayed that prayer nearly every day: 'Lord, I give up all my own plans and purposes.. : until I could say it all and truly agree in my heart. The last part, 'at any cost,' took six months to achieve. Once I did, things moved quickly. My husband of twenty-three years divorced me to marry a younger woman. But God was gracious. [The writer tells the story of how He has led and provided.] Today, four years later, I am praying that prayer again, and I'm feeling a call I've felt since I was twelve-to the foreign mission field." Often, as Jesus told us (Lk 9:24), finding life (in heavenly terms) entails losing life (in earthly terms). What we had depended on gives way. "Thy will be done" means mine be undone. Betty Scott Stam could not have known that in a few years she would be beheaded by Chinese Communists when she prayed, Lord, I give up all my own plans and purposes, all my own desires and hopes, and accept Thy will for my life. I give myself, my life, my all, utterly to Thee to be Thine forever. Fill me and seal me with Thy Holy Spirit. Use me as Thou wilt. Send me where Thou wilt. Work out Thy whole will in my life at any cost, now and forever. Amen.

1986 January/February issue Part 7

Drastic Obedience

"One reads tomes on the work of the Holy Spirit when one five-minutes of drastic obedience would make things as clear as a sunbeam." Oswald Chambers: My Utmost for His Highest.

January/February issue Part 6

What Do You Want Your Biographer to Say about You?

My brother Tom gave me a collection of essays on the writing of biography, to help in the work I am at present engaged in. There's a lesson for all of us, I think, in this paragraph from an essay written in 1932 by Claude M. Fuess, headmaster of Phillips Academy: "If [Gamaliel] Bradford [a famous biographer] were, in some whimsical mood, to turn his analytic gaze in my direction, what should I like him to notice: that golden Phi Beta Kappa key or that unpaid laundry bill; that ten-dollar check sent to an indigent cousin or that towel pilfered from the Pullman Company; that unprinted ode to spring or that kick furtively bestowed upon a stray cat?"

1986 January/February issue Part 5

The Spirit of Renunciation

Francois Coillard, missionary of the Zambesi, wrote, "When we see missionary festivals so run after-when we hear these stirring hymns, these sublime and moving protestations of our compassion for the perishing Heathen, and of our entire devotion to Him whom we acknowledge as King, should we not expect to see a whole crusade on the march for the conquest of the world, singing'Onward, Christian Soldiers? One might suppose that, all we have and all we hope for had been laid on the altar, waiting for nothing but the fire from heaven. And, in reality, what have we done? What have we given? What have we sacrificed? Where does this spirit of renunciation show itself in the details of daily life? What discipline are we willing to submit to? What ease, what luxuries have we denied ourselves? "Have we not indeed often grudged to God's service what we could spare? And alas even this half-hearted zeal soon evaporates. The fit of spasmodic devotion once over, we take back from God what we had professed to give Him; we return to the idols of our hearts, refuse His claims, and leave the Heathen to perish without compunction." (Quoted by Amy Carmichael in a private letter, May 2, 1899)

1986 January/February issue Part 4

The Golden Rule for Roommates

If you open it, close it.

If you turn it on, turn it off.

If you unlock it, lock it up.

If you break it, admit it.

If you can't fix it, call in someone who can.

If you borrow it, return it.

If you value it, take care of it.

If you make a mess, clean it up.

If you move it, put it back.

If it belongs to someone else and you want to use it, get permission.

If you don't know how to operate it, leave it alone.

If it's none of your business, don't ask questions.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

If it will brighten someone s day, say it.