Making the Best

We moved into the old farmhouse a few years ago now. And there was so much work to be done! The walls were made of old plaster and were visibly cracking in places--even a fresh coat of paint didn't help them much! The attic floor needed to be reinforced; I was concerned that someone was going to fall into the dining room from a height ;-) and join us for dinner unexpectedly! ;-). There were major issues (we needed a well; the windows needed to be replaced) and minor issues (the mice were a little too cozy and settled; though I do like mice in moderation--just not in my house ;-), the walls needed fresh coats of paint) and we knew that we could only tackle a little bit at a time. 

The Lord led us to this home in the Midwest and I love the old farmhouse dearly. But there was (and is) an awful lot of work to be done. 

One of the "minor" issues was the lack of cupboards in the kitchen.  Actually, there were no cupboards--just an antique buffet that the former owners used to put their dishes and other items in. It was beautiful and big and immensely heavy--with see-through glass windows that didn't do any justice to my (lack) of pretty dishes  and to my abundance of child-friendly glassware and sippy cups. Any woman reading this immediately shudders. How does one survive without adequate kitchen storage space? Is it even possible? 

So I did the best that I could. I arranged my dishes and plates and other miscellaneous items in that great big glass-windowed shudderingly-see-through cupboard-buffet. I used the drawers for cookie cutters and other such items; the opposite side of the buffet is a house to my small appliances (blender, food processor, etc). An obliging closet upstairs and our attic houses some of the other kitchen appliances. 

I was not entirely happy about this arrangement but decided to make the best of it. We would get cupboards for our kitchen in due time. And I have read too many missionary biographies about small spaces and "making do" to whine and pout too loudly . . . 

But in this little heart of mine I was dissatisfied; I really was. My usually-very-organized- neat self balked against the lack of proper storage space. As time wore on and the dearth of cupboards in my kitchen became less and less of a priority in light of the more major issues that kept surfacing, I began to despair of my dishes ever receiving a proper home. 

And then there was the drawer in the kitchen that attacked me. It was the only place that I could put the utensils in--but the problem was that it was just too close to the hutch, which was too close to the stove, which had no place to go because of its positioning in the kitchen. And we needed a stove; so getting rid of that particular appliance was not an option--even with our commitment to rural living. ;-) So back to that drawer--it stuck when I was attempting to squeeze something out of it and shaved back a large chunk of skin on my thumb--there was a dizzying amount of blood and I still bear the scar from that particular battle (the drawer won). 

In response to all of these "issues" that caused me chagrin, I "left" the buffet--it was a bane and a blight to happy kitchen living. "It's useless!" I thought, and just let a little dust collect in its inner corners. The dishes and cups were neat, but not as neatly ordered as they could have been. My cookie cutters were a bit jumbled in another drawer and my gift wrapping drawer needed to be organized. I looked at that buffet and it looked back at me and I just couldn't wait until I could tell it that its lease was up. We scowled at one another; I refused to dust its inner corners; it refused to open properly for me and we were really very spiteful to each other ;-). "You're too bulky!" I told it and it squinted at me through one of its under-windexed windows.  We refused to speak to one another for a while and I very begrudgingly gave it a bath with magic erasers only when it pleaded. 

And then the Lord spoke to my heart. I'm a believer that the "hidden" places matter. The dust under the bed, the crumbs carefully concealed beneath the legs of the table, those things that are sometimes neglected because no one really sees them. But God does. I read a story about Amy Carmichael and about the way that she emphasized to the little girls in her orphanage that they should sweep the corners when they cleaned and not be neglectful of the dirt that "no one sees." Because God does and we do our work unto Him. 

I felt convicted that I had purposely been neglecting the buffet because I was irritated in my heart that I didn't have the right storage space. I humbled myself before the Lord and made peace with that buffet. 

We have been on friendly terms since. 

I saw an idea in one of my Mom's old country magazines where someone had covered the open glass windows of their "unsightly" cabinets with pretty fabric. There it is; I thought! And the next time I was at the local Mennonite dry good store, I purchased enough to cover the open glass windows. Painstakingly I tacked it on and re-organized my cups, glasses, appliances, and various other items finding a home in that buffet. I knew a peace sweeping over my heart as I accepted the buffet as the Lord's present will for my storage and trusted that in His good time I would have proper storage space. I look at the buffet with new eyes and I daresay, it looks back at me with a gaze of mutual respect. :-). 

The point is here that when the Lord at times, in His perfect wisdom, chooses not to change our situation, whether it be in great or small things (such as in the case of this buffet) we can either accept His will or balk and pout. I knew that it wasn't His timing that we put cupboards in our kitchen. My acceptance of His will was more important than me being able to immediately organize my kitchen the way that I would like to. 

And yet, in the meantime, the Lord gives us creativity and grace to make the best of our situation. When we don't have the money to buy books that we might like, He gives us libraries. When we are not able to travel or to go on vacation He gives us lakes and parks and places to enjoy His creation. When we longingly wish for a new dress, He opens our eyes to see what is already hanging in our closet .

When we make the best, He gives us new eyes--the eyes that redeem seemingly useless things to have use again and to be used for His present purpose. 

I have experienced this countless times in my life--I can either "make the best" of something through His enabling joy and power --or sit in my pouts before God. 

Is it wrong to pray that He will change our circumstances? That He will give us proper storage space, that He will open doors in whatever area of our life that we are praying about? Absolutely not. But as Amy Carmichael says, "in acceptance lieth peace." If the Lord is speaking the words "Wait," into our hearts, our response must be acceptance of His present will for us. He will give us the grace to wait. 

So we make the best. We don't rebel. We trust our kind, loving Savior--we talk to Him about how we would like Him to change our circumstances. And then we move forward. We are faithful in the small things. We clean the corners of our cupboards. We neatly organize our dishes. We talk to our children about being faithful in little things and we especially show them by our example. 

God is faithful in the small things. He makes the best of concrete and allows violets to grow through its cracks. He makes the best of unkempt lawns and allows dandelions to grow up in them to feed the birds. He scatters rays of sunlight through gray clouds. He dresses the birds beautifully in the long and cheerless winter. God makes the best; so should we. 

So we make the best too--with cheerful hearts in the joy of the Lord which is our strength. We trust the One who knows all things and who is infinitely wise and good--

And we make peace with old buffets. 






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Grace in the (Midwest) Wilderness

Bare heights of loneliness...a wilderness whose burning winds sweep over glowing sands, what are they to HIM? Even there He can refresh us, even there He can renew us.
~ Amy Carmichael

I moved here last Fall with a heavy heart and with hope in a Sovereign, loving Father who was directing my steps. 

My Presence shall go with you and I will give you rest. (Exodus 33:14)

I moved here just as the corn was ripening and the earth was growing brown and as the first splendor of Autumn was descending like a harvest angel over the vast, glorious landscape. 

I moved here in fear and trembling, an abundance of tissues beside me, not knowing when I would see my beloved family again. 

Just as the corn was growing ripe.

I moved here with a promise--

My Presence will go with you and I will give you rest . . .

And with the words of the missionary David Livingstone etched on my raw, bleeding heart--

God, send me anywhere, only go with me. Lay any burden on me, only sustain me. And sever any tie in my heart except the tie that binds my heart to Yours.

The Lord sent me here. I know that as I know that blood flows through my veins and that there is breath in my lungs. 

The Lord sent me here. 

Here with my two little ones and with my husband, here to do what He had called us to do so long ago, here through the pain to follow Him. 

Because I love Him more . . . because of His grace. And with trembling hands I have held out the sacrifice and then grasped it back and then held out trembling hands again-

If we hold tightly to anything given to us unwilling to allow it to be used as the Giver means it to be used we stunt the growth of the soul. What God gives us is not necessarily "ours" but only ours to offer back to him, ours to relinquish, ours to lose, ours to let go of, if we want to be our true selves. Many deaths must go into reaching our maturity in Christ, many letting goes. 
~Elisabeth Elliot

For Him to take and to give life.

In November, I inwardly shuddered when it snowed before Thanksgiving, when the cold crept in like the night overtaking the sweet glory of day. I wondered what the winter would be like.

Here. Alone. Without even a car for most of the week as my husband and I were sharing a vehicle. 

In a cold, drafty house, with two very little ones--would I make it? Could I do it? 

I couldn't. But He could through me. And I learned that 

. . . to be left alone is not always to be forsaken."
~George MacDonald

There was a breakthrough for me at one point as I struggled to find joy amidst ashes. 

One morning, a bleak, overcast December morning, this Scripture came to me with strength and power and hope as I prayed to the Lord for strength--like a spiritual whisper to my heart--

The joy of the Lord is my strength. (Nehemiah 8:10)

The joy of the Lord is my strength . . . hope, refreshment, life--as the Lord placed into my aching open hands the promise of His strength.

Joy with my children . . . joy with my husband . . . joy in Him . . . 

In Him, in Him. 

Grace in the wilderness. Where everything seemed barren and bleak--a wasteland where the reaped corn looked like jagged teeth standing crookedly from the snow. 

Grace. 

And one of the highlights of that year was attending the Christmas service at the church where the Lord mercifully directed us--singing the hymns, listening to the Gospel preached powerfully and with a pleading for souls, enjoying the sincere love and fellowship of other believers . . . 

My heart was filled with grace.

Grace through brokenness, grace through loneliness, grace through pain,

Grace in the wilderness because-

“Of one thing I am perfectly sure: God's story never ends with 'ashes.” 
~Elisabeth Elliot

And it hasn't. 

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Bi-Weekly Hymn Spotlight: Come Down, O Love Divine

To learn more about Bi-Weekly hymn spotlights, click here. 

Come down, O love divine,

seek thou this soul of mine,

and visit it with thine own ardor glowing;

O Comforter, draw near,

within my heart appear,

and kindle it, thy holy flame bestowing.

O let it freely burn,

till earthly passions turn

to dust and ashes in its heat consuming;

and let thy glorious light

shine ever on my sight,

and clothe me round, the while my path illuming.

Let holy charity

mine outward vesture be,

and lowliness become mine inner clothing;

true lowliness of heart,

which takes the humbler part,

and o'er its own shortcomings weeps with loathing.

And so the yearning strong,

with which the soul will long,

shall far outpass the power of human telling;

for none can guess its grace,

till Love create a place

wherein the Holy Spirit makes a dwelling.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Words: Bianco da Siena, d. 1434;

trans. Richard Frederick Littledale, Jr., 1867

Brief Synopsis:

Not much is known about the author of this beautiful hymn. A Catholic mystic, Bianco Da Siena, was born in a small Italian hamlet, Anciolina. He later moved to Siena, where he worked as a wood carver. Bianco was a member of the Gesuati, living in a monastery. He composed his music in what is known as the "laude" form (a form that was used outside of the Catholic liturgy and was usually composed as "melody only.")

Bianco's hymn became better known after the Irish composer, Richard Littledale translated 4 of the hymn's stanzas and it was put in the English Hymnal in 1906. 

The English composer Ralph Vaughn Williams (1872-1958) later set the hymn to music in a way that draws the beauty and richness of the lyrics out. 


How is this hymn meaningful to believers, past and present?


I was introduced to this hymn through listening to a recording of musician Fernando Ortega performing it. The lyrics struck me with their simple poignancy and it seemed as though grace breathed through the notes. The hymn spoke to me of surrender--of surrendering one's whole soul, life, body, spirit, mind, and heart to the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. 

And then it spoke of that filling, that indescribable moment when the Holy Spirit comes to dwell in a believer's heart and begins to mold and shape every aspect of his inner person. 

I grew up surrounded by and immersed in very Conservative theology. I am grateful for the solid, biblical foundation that the Lord provided for me through that experience. I was "grounded" in the Word, taught that the Word is unchanging, and convinced of the authority of the Scriptures. This was a great blessing to me. 

However, the Lord also allowed me to be influenced by a person very close to me to read the "mystics," and by mystics, I mean those believers who held that the Holy Spirit works in a believer's life powerfully and fruitfully, and most important--personally. 

Lilias Trotter, Oswald Chambers, Andrew Murray, and Amy Carmichael, among others had a profound effect upon me. Theirs and others' writing brought the Holy Spirit alive for me--because all of the right theology in the world doesn't produce holiness. Only the Holy Spirit's powerful working in a believer's heart does. 

More recently, the Lord led me to read A. W. Tozer's writing, and I have been tremendously blessed through that as well. I felt a kindred bond to him when I read these words that he spoke to renowned theologian Martyn Llloyd Jones:


'Once', Martyn Lloyd-Jones recalled, 'Dr. Tozer and I shared a conference years ago, and I appreciated his ministry and his fellowship very much. One day he said to me: 'Lloyd-Jones, you and I hold just about the same position on spiritual matters, but we have come to this position by different routes.' 'How do you mean?' I asked. 'Well,' Tozer replied, 'you came by way of the Puritans and I came by way of the mystics.' And, you know,' said Lloyd-Jones, 'he was right.'

I am profoundly grateful for "right" theology. I am also profoundly grateful for the personal, life-changing work of the Holy Spirit in a believer's life, the work of which this beautiful hymn speaks.  They are a two-fold cord that cannot be torn apart. 

May the Lord touch each of his people with a keen understanding of the Spirit's individual work in their lives and circumstances and may He grant to each of us that "yearning strong," of which Bianco da Siena writes. 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sources:
http://www.umcdiscipleship.org/resources/history-of-hymns-italian-mystic-composes-melodic-o-love-divine

http://www.lectionary.org/HymnStories/Come%20Down,%20O%20Love%20Divine.htm

The Life of A.W. Tozer: In Pursuit of God, by James L. Snyder 



You might find me on these link-ups:

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Monthly Book Giveaway--A Chance to Die: The Life and Legacy of Amy Carmichael, by Elisabeth Elliot

For more information about Monthly Book Giveaways, click HERE. 

This month's book giveaway is a paperback copy of A Chance to Die: the Life and Legacy of Amy Carmichael, written by Elisabeth Elliot. 

The Lord works in unusual ways. I ordered this book  a few months ago along with two others in preparation for subsequent book giveaways.  

This past week, I learned of Elisabeth Elliot going home to be with the Lord. It seemed only appropriate that this month's giveaway be of a book that she had written and that had touched my heart deeply when I read it. 

Only the Lord knows how many countless people's lives have been affected by Elisabeth Elliot;s writings. I know mine has; and for that, I am grateful to God. 

Publisher's description of the book: 

A Chance to Die is a vibrant portrayal of Amy Carmichael, an Irish missionary and writer who spent fifty-three years in south India without furlough. There she became known as "Amma," or "mother," as she founded the Dohnavur Fellowship, a refuge for underprivileged children.

Amy's life of obedience and courage stands as a model for all who claim the name of Christ. She was a woman with desires and dreams, faults and fears, who gave her life unconditionally to serve her Master.

Bringing Amma to life through inspiring photos and compelling biographical narrative, Elisabeth Elliot urges readers to examine the depths of their own commitment to Christ.

My prayer is that this beautiful, detailed book chronicling the life of Amy Carmichael may be used of the Lord in someone's life as an inspiration and a joy, and that it may spur them on to deeper love and consecration to the Master. 

a Rafflecopter giveaway
You might find me on these link-ups:

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A Door in the Wall

"Some humble grow at last and still

And then God gives them what they will."

--George MacDonald

"In acceptance lieth peace."

--Amy Carmichael

It would work out perfectly; I could just see it in my mind's little eye--

My almost-two-year-old would sit cozily in my lap on the glider, attentive and cooperative. 

I would put my two-month-old in the baby swing right next to us; he would enjoy listening, too, and then cheerfully fall asleep while my voice droned on and on, a picture of contentment and baby bliss. 

Ten minutes later, the two-year-old squirming and whining, the two-month-old wide awake and wailing and I sitting all-forlorn with a book in my hand -- so I think, what went wrong? 

And I feel frustrated after the long morning and I'm over-tired and the tears well up--

And secretly--oh-so-secretly, I am upset (angry?) at God in this little event because He didn't allow things to go the way that I planned them. Wasn't it a good plan? Isn't it good to read books to my daughter? He wants me to be orderly and to have a schedule and to enrich my babies' lives, now doesn't He? 

And so I'm frustrated -- and I think, I should just give up. 

I think and I pout and I sigh and I listen to my babies'  wailing--

And then, by God's grace, I don't give up. 

I pray and I take my babies and we sit on the floor, one in my lap and one beside me and we read on the floor, and it works. 

Maybe not in the most comfortable way, maybe not in the way that I had planned it, but it works--

And my two-year-old is read to and my two-month-old is comforted and we go on. 

I accept the situation that God has handed me in His wisdom and we go on.  

The Lord has been teaching me something -- day in and day out -- teaching me something--

I haven't learned it (honestly) yet, but I want to--

Bringing that old Amy Carmichael poem to my mind -- many times--

Convicting me through it, placing it in my thoughts . . . 

That "in acceptance lieth peace."

There are situations in life that I have no control over, situations that to every appearance seem like "dead-end" streets, with nowhere to go and no way out. 

But they aren't, and like Marguerite DeAngelis speaks in the book that my sister urged me to read, there is a door in the wall. 

A door in the wall . . . an opening of grace at the acceptable time, when God in His wisdom deems it so, a door in the wall that seems so ominous and blank and unmoveable. 

A door in the wall. 

That will open. 

I have a choice. 

I can go through life, through each day as George MacDonald says, moaning and raving and scorning and frustrated that things are not going the way I want them to in the timing that I want them to be performed in, 

Or I can accept. 

Accept God's timing--that after I've worried and waited and prayed for a yes-right-now- accept His sovereignty--

The sovereignty of His love. 

"In acceptance lieth peace," a true peace, peace of the soul, though sometimes I'm loath to admit it. 

And I'm not talking about jellyfish-resignation, about giving up -- but about steel-determined acceptance of God's will for my life in the now -- in what He is handing me today. 

After the struggle, the acceptance comes. 

Then peace.

And the door in the wall opens. 

To read Amy Carmichael's poem, click here





You might find me on these link-ups:

Strangers and Pilgrims on Earth, Inspire Me Monday, The Modest Mom, What Joy is Mine, SDG Gathering, A Mama's Story, Mom's the Word, Rich Faith Rising, Time Warp Wife, Cornerstone Confessions, Mom's Morning Coffee, Motivate and Rejuvenate Mondays, So Much at Home, Raising Homemakers, Hope in Every Season, A Wise Woman Builds Her Home, Woman to Woman Ministries, Whole-Hearted Home, Testimony Tuesday, Tell His Story, A Soft Gentle Voice, My Daily Walk in His Grace, Women With Intention Wednesdays, Messy Marriage, The Charm of Home, Graced Simplicity, Theology Thursdays, Children Are A Blessing, Mittenstate Sheep and Wool, Imparting Grace, Preparedness Mama, A Look at the Book, Essential Thing Devotions, Thought Provoking Thursday, Every Day Jesus, Count My Blessings, Christian Mommy Blogger, Renewed Daily, Soul Survival, Good Morning Mondays, The Weekend Brew, Blessing Counters Link Party, The HomeAcre Hop, Mommy Moments Link Up, Grace and Truth Linkup, Faith Filled Friday, Saturday Soiree Blog Party, Tell It To Me Tuesdays, SHINE Blog Hop, Faith and  Fellowship Blog Hop, Motivate and Rejuvenate Monday Link-Up, A Little R&R Wednesdays. TGI Saturdays Blog Hop. Totally Terrific Tuesday, RaRaLinkup