Be Not Blind to the Shining of His Face

Far in the future lieth a fear;
Like a long, low, mist of gray,
Gathering to fall in dreary rain;
Thus doth thy heart within thee complain.
And even now thou art afraid, for round thy dwelling
The flying winds are ever telling
Of the fear that lieth gray
Like a gloom of brooding mist upon the way.

But The Lord is always kind;
Be not blind, be not blind To the shining of His face,
To the comforts of His grace.
Hath He ever failed thee yet?
Never, never. Wherefore fret?
O fret not thyself, nor let They heart be troubled,
Neither let it be afraid.

Near, by thy footfall, springeth a joy, Like a new-blown little flower
Growing for thee, to make thee glad.
Let thy countenance be no more sad,
But wake the voice of joy and health within thy dwelling,
And let thy tongue be ever telling,
Not of fear that lieth gray, But of little flowers beside the way.

For the Lord is always kind,
Be not blind, be not blind To the shining of His face,
To the comforts of His grace.
He hath never failed thee yet.
Never will His love forget.
O fret not thyself, nor let Thy heart be troubled,
Neither let it be afraid.

~ Amy Carmichael

On Folks We Can't Stand...

IF thy disturbance of mind proceeds from a person who is so disagreeable to thee, that every little action of his annoys or irritates thee, the remedy is to force thyself to love him, and to hold him dear; not only because he is a creature formed by the same sovereign hand as thou art, but also because he offers thee an opportunity (if thou wilt accept it) of becoming like unto thy Lord, who is kind and loving unto all men.
~ Lorenzo Scupoli

The habit of letting every foolish or uncharitable thought, as it arises, find words, has a great deal to do with much evil in the world. Check the habit of uttering the words, and gradually you will find that you check the habit of thought too. A resolution always to turn to some distinctly good thought when a complaining or unkind one arises in the mind, is a great help--as it is to turn every thought condemnatory of our neighbor into a prayer for him. We never can long continue to dislike people for whom we pray.
~ H. L. Sidney Lear

Love in Our Deeds

Your life is hid with Christ in God.
--COLOSSIANS 3:3

Put on therefore a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, longsuffering; forbearing one another, and forgiving each other; even as the Lord forgave you so also do ye.
--COLOSSIANS 3:12-13 (R. V.)

IT is not the deed we do,
Though the deed be never so fair,
But the love that the dear Lord looketh for,
Hidden with holy care
In the heart of the deed so fair.
--HARRIET MCEWEN KIMBALL

THESE are duties which belong to us alike, whatever our outward lot be, whether rich or poor, honored or despised, amid outward joys or sorrows. For as our life is hidden in Christ, so have we all an outward and an inward, a hidden life. Outwardly, we seem busied for the most part about common things, with trivial duties, worthless tasks. Inwardly we are, or ought to be, studying how, in all, to please God, walking in His sight, doing them in His Presence, seeking to know how He would have them done. So amid trivial things we may be, nay men are, in every station of life, pleasing God, that is, leading angels' lives, in that they are doing His will on earth, as the angels in heaven. They are "servants of His, doing His pleasure."
--EDWARD B. PUSEY

Remembering Our Brothers and Sisters in Chains...

We do not value as we ought our inestimable privilege of being allowed to worship God. We do not prize our heavenly prerogative of being permitted to keep His commandments. We look at that as an obligation which is more properly a boon.

 ~ Frederick W. Faber

A Piece of Courage

The Lord redeemeth the souls of his servants: and none that trust in him, shall perish.

~ Psalm 34:22

Aslan's instructions always work, there are no exceptions.

~ Puddleglum Marshwiggle

(as quoted by C.S. Lewis)

The true follower of Christ will not ask, "If I embrace this truth, what will it cost me?" Rather he will say, "This is truth. God help me to walk in it, let come what may!"

~ A. W. Tozer

Thought for a Monday Morning...

 

'Tis the voice of the sluggard; I heard him complain,
"You have waked me too soon, I must slumber again."
As the door on its hinges, so he on his bed,
Turns his sides and his shoulders and his heavy head.

"A little more sleep, and a little more slumber;"
Thus he wastes half his days, and his hours without number,
And when he gets up, he sits folding his hands,
Or walks about sauntering, or trifling he stands.

I pass'd by his garden, and saw the wild brier,
The thorn and the thistle grow broader and higher;
The clothes that hang on him are turning to rags;
And his money still wastes till he starves or he begs.

I made him a visit, still hoping to find
That he took better care for improving his mind:
He told me his dreams, talked of eating and drinking;
But scarce reads his Bible, and never loves thinking.

I then to my heart, "Here's a lesson for me,"
This man's but a picture of what I might be:
But thanks to my friends for their care in my breeding,
Who taught me betimes to love working and reading.

~ Isaac Watts 

based on Proverbs 24:30-34

"Sloth is the failure to do what needs to be done when it needs to be done   - like the kamikaze pilot who flew seventeen missions." 

~ John Ortberg

This Day...

Father, this day may I do nothing to tarnish your name... may the teaching of kindness be on my tongue... may the sweet peace that passes understanding keep my heart and mind in Christ Jesus.... may I be both thankful and humble... both undisturbed and undisturbing... I humbly ask this in Jesus Name... may the glory of the Lord be seen in me... Amen...

Tried, Refined, and Purified

Psalm 66

To the Chief Musician. A song. A Psalm.

 ¹MAKE A joyful noise unto God, all the earth;    ²Sing forth the honor and glory of His name; make His praise glorious!
    ³Say to God, How awesome and fearfully glorious are Your works! Through the greatness of Your power shall Your enemies submit themselves to You [with feigned and reluctant obedience].
    ⁴All the earth shall bow down to You and sing [praises] to You; they shall praise Your name in song. Selah [pause, and calmly think of that]!
    ⁵Come and see the works of God; see how [to save His people He smites their foes; He is] terrible in His doings toward the children of men.
    ⁶He turned the sea into dry land, they crossed through the river on foot; there did we rejoice in Him.
    ⁷He rules by His might forever, His eyes observe and keep watch over the nations; let not the rebellious exalt themselves. Selah [pause, and calmly think of that]!
    ⁸Bless our God, O peoples, give Him grateful thanks and make the voice of His praise be heard,
    ⁹Who put and kept us among the living, and has not allowed our feet to slip.
    ¹⁰For You, O God, have proved us; You have tried us as silver is tried, refined, and purified.
    ¹¹You brought us into the net (the prison fortress, the dungeon); You laid a heavy burden upon our loins.
    ¹²You caused men to ride over our heads [when we were prostrate]; we went through fire and through water, but You brought us out into a broad, moist place [to abundance and refreshment and the open air].
    ¹³I will come into Your house with burnt offerings [of entire consecration]; I will pay You my vows,
    ¹⁴Which my lips uttered and my mouth promised when I was in distress.
    ¹⁵I will offer to You burnt offerings of fat lambs, with rams consumed in sweet-smelling smoke; I will offer bullocks and he-goats. Selah [pause, and calmly think of that]!
    ¹⁶Come and hear, all you who reverently and worshipfully fear God, and I will declare what He has done for me!
    ¹⁷I cried aloud to Him; He was extolled and high praise was under my tongue.
    ¹⁸If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me;^{(A)
    19}But certainly God has heard me; He has given heed to the voice of my prayer.
    ²⁰Blessed be God, Who has not rejected my prayer nor removed His mercy and loving-kindness from being [as it always is] with me.

~ Amplified Version

We pray for blessings
We pray for peace
Comfort for family, protection while we sleep
We pray for healing, for prosperity
We pray for Your mighty hand to ease our suffering
All the while, You hear each spoken need
Yet love is way too much to give us lesser things

‘Cause what if your blessings come through raindrops
What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights are what it takes to know You're near
What if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise

We pray for wisdom
Your voice to hear
We cry in anger when we cannot feel You near
We doubt your goodness, we doubt your love
As if every promise from Your Word is not enough
All the while, You hear each desperate plea
And long that we'd have faith to believe

When friends betray us
When darkness seems to win
We know that pain reminds this heart
That this is not our home

What if my greatest disappointments
Or the aching of this life
Is the revealing of a greater thirst this world can't satisfy
What if trials of this life
The rain, the storms, the hardest nights
Are your mercies in disguise

Just a Thought...

Bread and water can so easily be toast and tea.

~ Anon

Ordinary work, which is what most of us do most of the time,is ordained by God every bit as much as is the extraordinary. All work done for God is spiritual work and therefore not merely a duty but a holy privilege.

- Elisabeth Elliot

Thoughts on Quarrelling

The beginning of strife is like letting out water,
So abandon the quarrel before it breaks out.

~ Proverbs 17:14 (NAS)

Never answer an angry word - it is the second one that starts a quarrel.

~ Anon

The test of a man or woman's breeding is how they behave in a quarrel.

~Anon

Photo from the NY Times

The Way Your Soul Shall Go

To every man there openeth
A Way, and Ways and a Way.
And the High Soul climbs the High Way
And the Low Soul climbs the Low,
And in between, on the misty flats,
The rest drift to and fro.
But to every man there openeth
A High Way and a Low;
And every man decideth
The Way his soul shall go.

~John Oxenham

Psalm 107:28-30

Then they cried out to the LORD in their trouble,
and He brought them out of their distress.

He stilled the storm to a whisper;
the waves of the sea were hushed.

They were glad when it grew calm,
and He guided them to their desired haven.

On Character

What you do when you don't have to, determines what you will be when you can no longer help it.

Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)

Something to Pray About

Here is the link to Reformed Singles website.

Working Mothers

The director of a center for women's concerns said, "Men have always been able to be involved in creative, self-actualizing work." She would like to see more women released from traditional women's work "to be involved in creative work." Creative work, in this lady's view, does not seem to include homemaking and mothering. Why not? I would like to ask. And who, for heaven's sake, is going to do the homemaking and mothering? The lady says she felt confused and frustrated when she was doing it, and "struggled with fulfillment." Many women feel as she does. I meet them often. What I long to help them to see is that if homemaking and mothering are the tasks God has assigned to them at present, it will be in the glad offering up to Him of those tasks that they will be truly "creative" and find real fulfillment.

There's an eternal spiritual principle here. It ought to be enough reason for anybody. Is there any other reason why I am always telling young mothers to stay home? Yes, two absolutely unarguable ones, and a third interesting one which you can argue about if you want to.

First, the Bible clearly tells me (an older woman) to teach younger women "how to work in their homes" (Titus 2:5, JB), or to be "busy at home" (NEB), or be "domestic" (RSV).

Second, children need their mothers. They need quantity time. None of this "quality time" nonsense. Any time which a Christian mother who loves her children gives them should be "quality."

Third, it's very possible that a working mother's income is not nearly so "extra" as may at first appear. Take a look at a study done by Wayne Coleman of Austin, Texas. I think his estimates are very modest. From weekly earnings of $175, subtract:

$17.50...tithe
35.00.....withholding tax
11.00.....Social Security
20.00.....transportation (.20 mile, 10 miles to job)
7.50.......lunches (these will have to be dieter's specials!)
12.50.....clothes, shoes, dry cleaning
35.00.....child care for one
5.00.......hair and cosmetics
1.00.......office collections, gifts, entertainments
2.00.......coffee breaks, miscellaneous
10.00.....extra for bring-home meals

Net income weekly: $18.50. If you subtract from this the things a woman may buy which she would not have bought if she didn't have "her own income," or that she may feel she deserves because she's working, how much "extra" is there for the necessities that convinced her she needed the job?

Here's a testimony from a young woman in Texas who has no children yet. "The struggle I'm having is even though I work only part-time, there doesn't seem to be time to keep house, be with other women, reach out to the needy and lost. I know the pressures of the world, pushing for 'upward mobility,' figure more into the picture than I realize, making my struggle quite a fight. A part of me wants to quit the job, another part of me isn't that free yet!"

Please--if you're a mother of young children, considering getting a job, will you consider these questions first?

• Will your income really be worth it?
• Will it increase your husband's tax burden?

Are you giving your best to your family and/or your employer? Former premier of Israel Golda Meir said that a working mother is torn apart--when in the office she's thinking of all she didn't get done at home, and when at home she's thinking of all she didn't get done at the office.

Would your husband be able to do a better job at work if you were doing a better job at home? What are your real motives for wanting to work? Could it be social pressure, boredom, acquisitiveness, pride, and unwillingness to do humble things? Are you trying to prove something?

I know some mothers of young children who in the face of genuine economic necessity have asked God to show them work they can do at home. Then they've gone to the library and read about businesses that can be engaged in at home, or they've been given an "original" idea. It's amazing to hear the answers God has given. "Your heavenly Father knows that you have need of all these things."

Just a Little Reminder

Frugality is founded on the principle that all riches have limits.

Edmund Burke

Beware of little expenses; a small leak will sink a great ship

Benjamin Franklin

Wealth can only be accumulated by the earnings of industry and the savings of frugality

John Tyler 10th US President

Use it up,
Wear it out,
Make it do,
Or do without.

A woman can throw more out the back door with a teaspoon than her husband can bring in the front door with a wheelbarrow.

What We Need

What does our country need?  No armies standing
With sabres gleaming ready for the fight;
Not increased navies, skilful and commanding,
To bound the waters with an iron might;
Not haughty men with glutted purses trying
To purchase souls, and keep the power of place;
Not jewelled dolls with one another vying
For palms of beauty, elegance, and grace.

But we want women, strong of soul, yet lowly,
With that rare meekness, born of gentleness;
Women whose lives are pure and clean and holy,
The women whom all little children bless;
Brave, earnest women, helpful to each other,
With finest scorn for all things low and mean;
Women who hold the names of wife and mother
Far nobler than the title of a queen.

Oh! these are they who mould the men of story,
These mothers, ofttimes shorn of grace and youth,
Who, worn and weary, ask no greater glory
Than making some young soul the home of truth;
Who sow in hearts all fallow for the sowing
The seeds of virtue and of scorn for sin,
And, patient, watch the beauteous harvest growing
And weed out tares which crafty hands cast in;

Women who do not hold the gift of beauty
As some rare treasure to be bought and sold.
But guard it as a precious aid to duty -
The outer framing of the inner gold;
Women who, low above their cradles bending,
Let flattery's voice go by, and give no heed,
While their pure prayers like incense are ascending
THESE are our country's pride, our country's need,

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

October

October gave a party;
The leaves by hundreds came -
The Chestnuts, Oaks, and Maples,
And leaves of every name.
The Sunshine spread a carpet,
And everything was grand,
Miss Weather led the dancing,
Professor Wind the band.

George Cooper
October's Party.

Autumn

Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.

George Eliot

Autumn is a second spring where every leaf is a flower.

Albert Camus

Autumn, the year's last, loveliest smile.

William Cullen Bryant

Winter is an etching, spring a watercolor, summer an oil painting and autumn a mosaic of them all.

Stanley Horowitz

I cannot endure to waste anything as precious as autumn sunshine by staying in the house. So I spend almost all the daylight hours in the open air.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Autumn burned brightly, a running flame through the mountains, a torch flung to the trees.

Faith Baldwin

The morns are meeker than they were,
The nuts are getting brown;
The berry's cheek is plumper,
The rose is out of town.
The maple wears a gayer scarf,
The field a scarlet gown.
Lest I should be old-fashioned,
I'll put a trinket on.

Emily Dickinson
Nature XXVII, Autumn.

Every leaf speaks bliss to me,
Fluttering from the autumn tree.

Emily Bronte

In the other gardens
And all up the vale,
From the autumn bonfires
See the smoke trail!
Pleasant summer over
And all the summer flowers,
The red fire blazes,
The grey smoke towers.
Sing a song of seasons!
Something bright in all!
Flowers in the summer,
Fires in the fall!

Robert Louis Stevenson
Autumn Fires.