31 Days of Inspirational Biography: Anne Bradstreet, Puritan Poetess

Posted on October 14, 2014 by Barbara Harper

Anne Bradstreet has been one of my favorite poets since I first “discovered” her in my college sophomore American literature class. She and her husband and her parents emigrated from England to America in 1630 with other Puritans. Her heart and spirit that shines through her poems refute the premise that the Puritans were dour and humorless. She was one of America’s first poets and the first women to have a book published in the United States. She hadn’t sought publication herself, but her brother-in-law collected some of her poems to have them published under the title The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America, By a Gentlewoman of Those Parts. Feminists like to claim that she was an early feminist, since poetry writing and publishing was outside the norm in that time, especially for Puritan women, but the content of her poems would contradict feminist leanings.

Probably one of her most well-known and favorite poems is To My Dear and Loving Husband, which begins with the lines, “If ever two were one, then surely we. If ever man were lov’d by wife, then thee.” Another of my favorites is The Author To Her Book, which begins, “Thou ill-formed offspring of my feeble brain…” By Night While Others Soundly Slept touched my heart with her seeking communion with her Lord late at night:

By night when others soundly slept
And hath at once both ease and Rest,
My waking eyes were open kept
And so to lie I found it best.

I sought him whom my Soul did Love,
With tears I sought him earnestly.
He bow’d his ear down from Above.
In vain I did not seek or cry.

My hungry Soul he fill’d with Good;
He in his Bottle put my tears,
My smarting wounds washt in his blood,
And banisht thence my Doubts and fears.

What to my Saviour shall I give
Who freely hath done this for me?
I’ll serve him here whilst I shall live
And Loue him to Eternity.

A few years ago my friend Bet pointed me to one of Anne’s poems with which I was not familiar, Verses Upon the Burning of Our House. The title clearly states the subject. The first lines describe the surprise and fear of finding her home in flames with earnest prayer for the Lord’s comfort. Job-like, “I blest his grace that gave and took,” and she acknowledges God’s ownership of all she has and His right to do with it as He will.

Yet she begins to grieve for the special, precious things lost, the particular familiar and treasured bits of a woman’s nesting instinct.

My sorrowing eyes aside did cast
And here and there the places spy
Where oft I sate and long did lie.
Here stood that Trunk, and there that chest,
There lay that store I counted best,
My pleasant things in ashes lie
And them behold no more shall I.

Then she reminds herself of the impermanence of treasures here on earth and “sets her affection of things above“:

Then straight I ‘gin my heart to chide:
And did thy wealth on earth abide,
Didst fix thy hope on mouldring dust,
The arm of flesh didst make thy trust?
Raise up thy thoughts above the sky
That dunghill mists away may fly.
Thou hast a house on high erect
Fram’d by that mighty Architect,
With glory richly furnished
Stands permanent, though this be fled.
It’s purchased and paid for too
By him who hath enough to do.
A price so vast as is unknown,
Yet by his gift is made thine own.
There’s wealth enough; I need no more.
Farewell, my pelf; farewell, my store.
The world no longer let me love;
My hope and Treasure lies above.

Often as I have read older stories and biographies I’ve been struck by how closely they lived with loss. We have fires, floods, and such now, too, of course, but such catastrophes happen much less often now due to safety factors implemented as a result of previous disasters. Yet even though materials things may last longer now, they still won’t last forever, and our treasures are best laid up in heaven.

A lot of modern online biographical sketches of Anne’s work tend to view her through a modern, biased lens rather than taking her work at face value and in context. Some see her as rebelling against her community and religious restrictions, but she was truly using her artistic gifts to express her faith rather than to rebel against it. One recent article I saw described her as ambivalent about her faith. I had never seen any ambivalence in her poems that I had read. I sent one such link to my friend Ann, who teaches about Anne in her high school English classes and knows much more about her than I do, and asked about the perspective. One of the poems quoted as “proof” in the article in question has this section:

Then higher on the glistering Sun I gaz’d
Whose beams was shaded by the leavie Tree,
The more I look’d, the more I grew amaz’d
And softly said, what glory’s like to thee?
Soul of this world, this Universes Eye,
No wonder, some made thee a Deity:
Had I not better known, (alas) the same had I.

Ann comments, “She’s saying that nature is so beautiful that she could be like others who do worship nature, if she didn’t know better. The fact that Cotton Mather praised her says volumes, as he was a leading Puritan preacher. I think Anne Bradstreet was a strong Christian and the author of this article is trying to weaken that testimony to fit her own purposes. Yes, that’s from my own biases – but believe the evidence of her life and writings fits that model better.” Ann also recommends Beyond Stateliest Marble: The Passionate Femininity of Anne Bradstreet by Douglas Wilson, which I had not heard of before but have put on my wish list.

I’m thankful and inspired that Anne used her poetry to reflect not only her love of home and family but of her God.

For the 31 Days writing challenge, I am sharing 31 Days of Inspirational Biography. You can find others in the series here.

31 Days of Inspirational Biography: Margaret Paton, Missionary to Cannibals in the South Sea Islands

Posted on October 10, 2014 by Barbara Harper

I wrote last year about John Paton, a missionary to the New Hebrides in the 1800s and a great man of God, who is the source of one of my all time favorite missionary quotes. Before he went to the field, some regarded him as foolish for going to minister where there were cannibals. To one man’s warning about his potential fate, he replied, “Mr. Dixon, you are advanced in years and your own prospect is soon to be laid in the grave, there to be eaten by worms. I confess to you that if I can but live and die serving and honoring the Lord Jesus, it will make no difference to me whether my body is eaten by cannibals or by worms.”

Some time ago I happened upon a book titled Margaret Paton: Letters From the South Seas, which, as its name implies, is a collection of letters that John Paton’s wife sent out over the years. The letters were written primarily to family back home, though there are a few to other individuals. They are quite long, but that is because they did not have the opportunity to send and receive mail very often. Since they were written to family, they contain more personal glimpses and anecdotes than a prayer letter to supporters would, and Margaret (or Maggie, as she signs herself) often had an amusing way of telling them. But there were also times of tragedy and perplexity that they experienced, and Maggie’s letters convey the situations and the wrestlings of heart they had in trying to discern the Lord’s will and His grace through every trial.
Rather than trying to summarize the whole book, I just want to give you a few excerpts here and there.

Maggie was John’s second wife: his first wife and son had died of malaria on the island of Tanna. When Maggie first came to the island with John, he pointed out “that Sacred Spot [the grave of his wife and child], so indelibly photographed on his memory. Oh, how I longed to spend a quiet hour by the grave of her whose footsteps I feel so unfit to follow, and who met her trials so unshrinkingly and alone — alone, so far as regards female companionship and sympathy!”

They were going to another island to labor and dropping off fellow missionaries at their respective islands on the way. On one island, “Great crowds of people came to look at us, as I believe we are the first white women who eve landed on Fotuna. The ladies were, in consequence, very curious to have us examined properly; and they went about it in a business-like way, as I can testify from the pokes and thumps received. They always felt themselves at the same time, to see how far we were alike. Poor things, they had yet to learn that we were sisters, resting under the same penalty and equally in need of and entitled to the same Saviour.” Then she mentioned having to “escape” when “their examinations” became “rather too minute.”

One thing that some missionaries struggle with, especially in primitive areas, is whether their living arrangements should be just like the natives or closer to what they are used to. There is no one right answer: it depends on the place, the people, health issues, and the leading of the Lord in each circumstance. The Paton’s home would have been nothing really like European homes, but Maggie writes, “I am trying my best to make it the prettiest and most inviting home I know — as refined, as civilized, and as nearly what we have been accustomed to, as our limited resources will permit. We must not let ourselves ‘down’ because we are among Savages, but try rather to lift them up to our Christian level in all things. One’s home has so much influence on one’s work, and on life and character; and it is due to our two wee boys to make it a bright one…it is no part of my creed to believe that…everything pleasant in sinful.” She then writes that, before she left for the field, one lady told her, “that missionaries’ wives were expected to live and dress in the most primitive way, and to set an example of great gravity and solemnity, else they would get to be talked about.” After wrestling with the “old Adam” in her, Maggie “controlled myself to retort, that in my Bible there was no separate code of rules for missionaries’ wives, any more than for other Christian gentlewomen.” She then wonders “that any one can be blind to the fact that our kind Creator has given us such wealth of beauty in Nature.” He could have made everything just useful, yet He chose to scatter beauty and charm throughout creation. This could probably be a separate post, but it all comes back to balance: I’ve read other stories of missionaries trying to find the right balance. I’m thinking of Isobel Kuhn in particular, who had some nice things from her wedding in her new home in a primitive area of China only to have them ruined by such practices the people then had of blowing their nose in their hands and then wiping them on the (new!) furniture, or letting babies use the bathroom on the beloved rug. She had to learn that though it isn’t wrong to “nest” or have nice things, it’s wrong to let them have priority over people’s souls or the work they were called to. I don’t think Maggie went too far the other way, but I’m just offering the other side of the balance for perspective.

In struggling to learn the language, she writes, “How the Apostles must have appreciated the gift of tongues on the Day of Pentecost! I wonder if it was accorded to their wives as well!” She writes how “provoking” it s to think you’ve mastered enough to converse a little, only to see them “looking at each other wonderingly.” “I got Mr. Paton’s help in any great difficulty — though he did not at all times enjoy the interruption, especially if the point in question turned out to be only about a needle and a thread, while he had been called away” from his work.

To some children who had given toward the Dayspring, the mission ship that transported people and supplies to the islands, she wrote, ”Now, if I tell you how really grateful all the missionaries are to the children who give their money so willingly to keep the Dayspring in nice order, and how the little vessel actually helps to keep the missionaries alive, as well as those so dear to them, by bringing them food and medicine and all they require, I am sure you will not grudge having denied yourselves many little gratifications to help in so important a work.”

There is a section I wish I had space to include answering some who criticize a missionary having a family. “The life of the Christian home is the best treatise on Christianity — a daily object lesson, which all can…’read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest.’” She also has a good section answering the comments some make that “ seem to grudge a man of burning enthusiasm and magnetic eloquence going to the foreign field, as if it were so much power and genius being wasted.” She argues convincingly for sending our best to the field.

I’ll forewarn you that there is a bit of perspective that’s not what we would think of as politically correct by today’s standards but I think is probably common for the times.

All of this comes just from the first third of the book! There’s so much more I wish I could include. I hope I’ve inspired you to read it for yourself.

For the 31 Days writing challenge, I am sharing 31 Days of Inspirational Biography. You can find others in the series here.

(This will also be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books.)

31 Days of Inspirational Biography: Mimosa

Posted on October 8, 2014 by Barbara Harper

Sometimes people who work in children’s ministries can get discouraged due to the seeming lack of fruit or the fact that they have some children just a few times and then never see them again. Mimosa by Amy Carmichael tells the story of a little girl who was marvelously changed by just a short encounter with the gospel.

When Amy Carmichael was a missionary in India she learned that some little girls were sold to the temples for immoral purposes. Whenever she could, she tried to rescue these girls, to talk their parents into letting them stay with her instead. One such little girl was named Star. She had been with Amy for a while when her father came, bringing her sister, Mimosa, with him, to try to take Star back. He met and talked with Amy and Mr. Walker, the director, and at one point even stretched out his arm to take Star — yet he felt he could not move, that some strange power was preventing him.

Mimosa saw this. Some of the workers had a short time to talk with her, not even time enough to present the gospel completely. Mimosa asked her father to let her stay: he would not hear of it.

Those who had met with Mimosa longed for her: she seemed intelligent and interested. They lamented that they had not had time to tell her more. “How could she possibly remember what we had told her? It was impossible to expect her to remember……Impossible? Is there such a word where the things of the Lord are concerned?”

Something of what she heard about a God who loved her stayed with her. She knew instinctively she could no longer rub the ashes of her family’s god on her forehead, as was their custom. The women in the house thought her naughty or “bewitched” and beat her with a stick. She was bewildered, but she knew God loved her, in spite of all she could not understand of her circumstances.

After she was married at age seventeen, she found she had been deceived by her husband’s family: He was “landless [and] neck-deep in debt.” It was no shame to be in debt: in that culture: “”If you have no debt, does it not follow that no one trusts you enough to lend you anything, and from that is it not obvious that you are a person of small consequence?” But Mimosa’s character could not endure it, though she had never been taught against it. She encouraged him to sell the land in her name, the only piece of land he had that he had given as a dowry, to pay off the debt, and then suggested they would work. He was amazed at such a thing, but agreed. His unscrupulous elder brother suggested they start a salt market and that Mimosa sell her jewels to get them set up: he would take care of it. He instead somehow misused the money. She gave some money to her mother to keep for her, but then her mother would not give it to her when she asked for it: her mother was angry with her over the loss of the jewels that had been passed to her. “Let thy God help thee!” she told her daughter.

Mimosa went out to pray: “O God, my husband has deceived me, his brother has deceived me, even my mother has deceived me, but You will not deceive me…Yes, they have all deceived me, but I am not offended with you. Whatever You do is good. What should I do without you? You are the Giver of health and strength and will to work. Are not these things better than riches or people’s help?….I am an emptiness for You to fill.”

Thus her life went. She was a derision because she would not worship the false gods or engage in idolatrous practices. She worked hard because her husband would not. There were times when she was weak and could not work that God worked in unusual ways to provide for her. She had three sons; then a snake bite left her husband blind and crazy. In a couple of instances she received a bit more information about the God she loved, and she clung to it and to Him.

Meanwhile, Star was concerned for her sister. She felt led to write to her and prayed someone would read the letter to Mimosa. A cousin did read it to her, as often as Mimosa asked him, but neither of them thought to write back to Star, so she and the ladies of Dohnavur were left to wonder and pray.

A mysterious illness which took the life of one of her sons caused the neighbors to torment her further with their words. They felt it was all her fault since she would do nothing to appease the gods. Mimosa replied, “ My child God gave; my child has God taken. It is well.” Though weak, ill, grieving, and alone, she still told God, “I am not offended with you.”

The years followed in much the same way. She had two more sons. The oldest one was taken by the father (who had regained something of his right mind) to another town to work but, to Mimosa’s grief, required him to rub the god’s ashes on his forehead.

She began to long that her children should have “what she had never had, the chance to learn fully of the true and living and holy God and themselves choose His worship.” It would take too much space here to tell how God wondrously worked out the all the details to go to Dohnavur, even, miraculously, her husband’s approval. Her sister, Star, was strongly burdened to pray for Mimosa and discovered later that was just the time when all of this was coming to pass. Twenty-two years after she first visited Dohnavur, she returned. It can only be imagined what she felt as she soaked up Christian fellowship, learned to read, studied the Bible, was baptized. After a time she went back to her husband, determined to win him. He was in a less tolerant caste, yet amazingly he did not put her away. Her life was not easy. “But then, she has not asked for ease; she has asked for the shield of patience that she may overcome.”

“Is not the courage of the love of God amazing?” Amy Carmichael wrote. “Could human love have asked it of a soul? Fortitude based on knowledge so slender; deathless, dauntless faith — who could have dared to ask it but the Lord God Himself? And what could have held her but Love Omnipotent?”

For the 31 Days writing challenge, I am sharing 31 Days of Inspirational Biography. You can find others in the series here.

31 Days of Inspirational Biography: Bill Maher, “Missionary to the Handicapped”

Posted on October 7, 2014 by Barbara Harper

When Bill Maher was born in 1928, the midwife assisting his mother thought he was dead. He was laid in the crib while the midwife and doctor turned their attentions to his mother, who was having severe complications. Bill was not dead, however, he was diagnosed with severe cerebral palsy. His parents were advised to put him away in an institution and forget they had him. The shocked mother refused. His parents sought any help and advice they could find to help their son while trying to treat him as normally as possible. His neck muscles were too weak to hold up his head, his arm and leg and tongue muscles were contracted and had to be stretched out daily. The therapy had both mother and son in tears, but it worked.

When Bill was two, he developed mumps and measles at the same time and lost his hearing. Yet he somehow learned to lip read. By the age of five he still could not talk.

Other children and even adults would taunt and tease Bill if his family was not around. Sadly, some of those people were even Christians — who would then ask Bill if he wanted to become a Christian! Neither he nor his parents did. Bill writes later in his autobiography, Beyond My Dreams, “Apparently these people had never read Leviticus 19:14: ‘Thou shalt not curse the deaf, not put a stumblingblock before the blind, but shalt fear thy God: I am the Lord.’ In other words, Christians should realize that God made the afflicted the way they are for a purpose and no one should take advantage of them because of their afflictions.”

One Christian lady knocked him down into the mud to get him out of her way and then told his mother he should not be allowed to walk where other civilized people did; he should instead be taken into the woods where the other animals were. Bill did not want to walk outside any more after that, but his mother told him, “Giving up is not in our vocabulary.”

Bill’s parents made him do chores and work hard. One time when he got out of a job his grandfather paid him to do by paying another child a lesser amount to do it, his mother was angry, but his grandfather realized he had to use his brains to figure that out. Bill had a wonderful sense of humor, manifested throughout his book.

Bill attended a regular school until fifth grade, when he failed because he could not keep up. The school felt they had taken him as far as they could, but the principal recommended a school for the deaf 30 miles away. His family made the daily commute, and Bill began to learn more.

When Bill was about 12, one family that was kind to him invited him to their church. There he saw many of the kids who picked on him, as well as the lady who had pushed him down. Yet he enjoyed the service and came back that evening. He misunderstood something the pastor said, and asked to speak to him afterward. Bill was ignorant of what the Bible said, and the pastor patiently explained Bill’s need for a Savior. Thankfully he did not let the failures of some of God’s people keep him from the one and only Savior who could meet his deepest needs. He accepted Christ and experienced immediate changes. He writes, “When I had walked into church that night, I had seen people I hated. When I left, I couldn’t hate them any more.”

When Bill completed the tenth grade at the school for the deaf, he was told he needed to face the “real world” and go to the public high school. He did passing work, got involved in extracurricular activities, held down part time jobs, got his driver’s license. But on graduation night, as he walked across the stage to receive his diploma, the man handing them out said, “It is amazing that you’ve graduated. You work hard, but you will still not amount to anything. If you can get a job, all you’ll ever be is maybe a janitor.” Bill was stunned, his mother was in tears, his dad was angry. Yet Bill was more determined that ever to prove this kind of thinking wrong.

Bill got a good job, but began getting into some of the activities of the unsaved coworkers and backslid. One day at work he had a heart attack, at the age of 22, and was told he only had a month to live. He asked his parents if he could stay with the pastor who had led him to the Lord at the camp where the pastor now ministered. They agreed, and over time Bill confessed his sins to the Lord and surrendered to do anything the Lord wanted him to do. The pastor felt Bill was called to preach. Bill didn’t think so because of his impediments. As he studied his Bible, he came across II Cor. 1:3-4 about comforting others with the comfort wherewith God comforted us, II Cor. 12 about God’s grace being sufficient, Phil. 4:13, and God’s answers to Moses’ objections. He surrendered to preach. His parents were upset and his dad told him not to come home.

Eventually his father did overcome his objections, Bill became a preacher, married, had two children, traveled all over the United States and then the world, preaching, ministering to the handicapped and afflicted, helped to start Christian schools for them, became a police chaplain, and received a honorary doctorate. He went home to be with the Lord in 2002.

In Dr. John Vaughn’s forward to Dr. Bill Maher’s book, he writes, “God is to be praised for the wonderful way he has worked in and through this man’s life. Bill Maher is to be commended for the wonderful way he has served the Lord under circumstances that would have discouraged most others from the start. As you read, you will probably ask yourself the question that comes to me so often when I am with this man who is like a father to me, ‘If he has done this with the Lord’s help, what could I do if I would really trust Him myself?’”

Luke 14: 13-14: But when thou makest a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind: And thou shalt be blessed; for they cannot recompense thee: for thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just.

For the 31 Days writing challenge, I am sharing 31 Days of Inspirational Biography. You can find others in the series here.

(This will also be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books.)

31 Days of Inspirational Biography: Lady Huntingdon

Posted on October 5, 2014 by Barbara Harper

For the 31 Days writing challenge, I am sharing 31 Days of Inspirational Biography. You can find others in the series here.

Lady Huntingdon used to say she was “saved by an M,” pointing out that I Corinthians 1:26 did not say “not any noble,” but rather that “not many noble” after the flesh are called. She rejoiced to be counted among those called.

Lady Selina Shirley Huntingdon lived in England in the time of John Wesley and George Whitfield in the 1700s. Though a member of the Church of England as the Wesleys were, she came to trust completely in Christ alone for salvation around age 32 through the influence of a sister-in-law. Her husband died a few years after her conversion, and she lived her remaining years helping to establish 64 “meeting-houses,” supporting George Whitefield and other clergy, opening chapels attached to her residences, opening a college to train men for the ministry, and supporting the Bethesda orphanage in Savannah which George Whitfield willed to her. It was her desire that the orphanage become a launching ground for missionary work in Georgia.

Lady Huntingdon also tried to reach her own friends for the Lord, who did not always appreciate her efforts. The Duchess of Buckingham wrote, “I thank your Ladyship for information on the Methodist preaching. Their doctrines are strongly tinctured with impertinence toward their superiors… It is monstrous to be told you have a heart as sinful as the common wretches who crawl the earth.” The Duchess of Marlborough replied: “Your concern for my improvement and religious knowledge is very obliging and I hope I shall be the better for your excellent advice…women of wit, beauty and quality cannot bear too many home truths… I am forced to the society of those I detest and abhor. There is Lady Sanderson’s great rout tomorrow night-I do hate the woman as much as I hate a physician, but I must go if only to mortify and spite her…I confess my little peccadilloes to you; your goodness will lead you to…forgiving. “

A Sunday School teacher once commented that God needs and uses people at all economic levels, all classes, all types, to reach those within their influence. Lady Huntingdon certainly used her influence for the Lord and followed after Joanna, Susanna, and others in the Bible who “ministered unto Him of their substance.” (Luke 8:2-3) A good book about her life and ministry is Lady Huntingdon and Her Friends by Helen Knight.

(This will also be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books.)

RTK Classics Book Club Selection for October: How I Know God Answers Prayer

Posted on October 1, 2014 by Barbara Harper

Those of you who follow along with Carrie’s Reading to Know Classics Book Club. know that we were originally going to do To the Golden Shore by Adoniram Judson this month. But shortly before the end of September, I began to be concerned that most participants might not read it, for several reasons: the book club was running a bit behind due to some lengthier classics earlier in the year and to busy life circumstances, there is no Kindle version of this book, and it probably isn’t in most public libraries. I was thinking about How I Know God Answers Prayer for next year, then suggested to Carrie that under the circumstances we might want to switch and do it this year: it’s shorter, there is a free Kindle version, and the text is online at Project Gutenberg. Though I am a little sad about not going forward with To the Golden Shore, I’d much rather choose a book that people will actually read. It seems from the comments Carrie and I both have received that this was a good decision. I do recommend To the Golden Shore to you: I apologize if you did go ahead and buy the book for this month’s discussion, but I feel sure you’ll find it worth the money and effort to read it.

Jonathan and Rosalind Goforth were pioneer missionaries to China at a time when foreign suspicion and distrust there reigned.

In the foreword of her little book How I Know God Answers Prayer, Rosalind shares how this book came to be:

When in Canada on our first furloughs I was frequently amazed at the incredulity expressed when definite testimony was given to an answer to prayer. Sometimes this was shown by an expressive shrug of the shoulders, sometimes by a sudden silence or turning of the topic of conversation, and sometimes more openly by the query: “How do you know that it might not have happened so, anyway?”

Gradually the impression deepened: “If they will not believe one, two, or a dozen testimonies, will they believe the combined testimonies of one whole life?”

The more I thought of what it would mean to record the sacred incidents connected with answers to prayer the more I shrank from the publicity, and from undertaking the task. There were dozens of answers far too sacred for the public eye, which were known only to a few, others known only to God. But if the record were to carry weight with those who did not believe in the supernatural element in prayer, many personal and scarcely less sacred incidents must of necessity be made public.

…It will be seen that these incidents of answered prayer are not given as being more wonderful, or more worthy of record, than multitudes the world over could testify to; but they are written and sent out simply and only because I had to write them or disobey God.

She goes on to do just that. Some of the answers to prayer are miraculous and monumental; some involve everyday concerns. Some are deeply personal, involving the depths of her own heart.

This was Rosalind’s first book, originally published in 1921. She went on to publish her husband’s biography, Goforth of China, in 1937, and then she was asked to share some of her own perspectives of life as a missionary wife in Climbing, one of my all-time favorite books, in 1940 (links are to my reviews). You’ll probably find her writing just a touch old-fashioned, but it is not hard to comprehend. She’s very transparent, and I’ve written before how it encouraging it is to find a woman “of like passions as we are” who found God’s grace to live for Him.

If you’ve never read of the Goforths, this will be a good introduction, and I hope you’ll go on to read her other books: if you have, it will be a good refresher.

If you’d like to read this book with us this month, you might let Carrie know here, and around the end of the month she’ll have a post where we can comment, share thoughts, or link up our review posts.

31 Days of Inspirational Biography: Frances Ridley Havergal’s Response to a Rude Waitress

Posted on October 1, 2014 by Barbara Harper

For the 31 Days writing challenge, I am sharing 31 Days of Inspirational Biography.

A few years ago I read a book titled In Trouble and In Joy: Four Women Who Lived For God by Sharon James. She wrote fairly short biographies of four women and then included several samples of their own writing: Margaret Baxter, wife of Puritan preacher Richard Baxter; Sarah Edwards, wife of Jonathan Edwards; Anne Steele and Frances Ridley Havergal, both single hymn writers. You might know some of Frances’s hymns: “Take My Life and Let It Be,” “Like a River Glorious,” “I Could Not Do Without Thee,” “Who Is on the Lord’s Side?” She wrote a sweet poem about fellow hymn writer Fanny Crosby, shown here. She only lived 42 years. One of the excerpts from Frances Ridley Havergal included this letter from a collection that was published under the title Swiss Letters (available online at Google Books). It was convicting to me because I’m sure I would have reacted much less graciously than she did.

For the first and only time in Switzerland, I found a strange contrast to the usual civility and even kindness of the people…A tall, bold, rough girl, of twenty-five or so, let me in. ” Yes, you can have a room when it’s ready; not before. Here, in here !” And she ushered me into a dark dirty room with tables and benches, marched off, and shut the door. I did not like my quarters at all, but there was no help for it…. But of course I had been asking all along to be guided, so I was not uneasy, but expected I had been guided there for some good reason, perhaps some wandering sheep to be found. It got quite dark, and then five or six men came in, and she brought a candle, and they sat down at one of the tables and smoked. I hardly think they saw me. I asked if my room was ready. ” No, you must wait! ” and out she darted, slamming the door. So I waited, sitting on my bench in my dark corner for nearly an hour, she coming roughly in and out, talking noisily and bringing wine for the men. At last— ” You can come upstairs now! ” So I went, glad enough.

It was not quite so dirty as downstairs, but not brilliant. A jug and basin on the table was all the apparatus ; the bed was barley straw, no pillow, but a pink cotton bolster. “Are you going to bed now ?” she asked. I told her yes, very soon. About eight o’clock, just as I really was going to bed, came a sharp angry rap at my door. I was glad it was locked, for before I could answer the handle was rattled violently.

“What is it?”

“Are you going to burn the candle all night ? How soon are you going to put it out, I should like to know! burning it all away ‘ comme cela!'” I considered it advisable to answer very meekly, so I merely said it should be put out in a few minutes, whereupon she banged downstairs. It seemed to me that this was an ” opportunity,” so I asked God that when morning came He would shut her mouth and open mine.

[The next morning at breakfast] I asked her to get me some coffee. ” Can’t have coffee till it’s made !” said she savagely. So I went and sat outside the door and waited patiently. In about half an hour she poked her head out. ” Do you want anything besides coffee ?” still in a tone as if I were a mortal enemy ! I suggested bread and butter. ” Butter!” (as if I had asked for turtle soup!) ” there is none, but you can have a piece of bread if you like.”

Then it was my turn! I went close to her, looked up into her wicked-looking eyes, and put my hand on her arm and said (as gently as possible): ” You are not happy ; I know you are not.” She darted the oddest look at me ; a sort of startled, half frightened look, as if she thought I was a witch! I saw I had touched the right string and followed it up, telling her how I saw last night she was unhappy, even when she was laughing and joking, and how I had prayed for her; and then, finding she was completely tamed, spoke to her quite plainly and solemnly, and then about Jesus and what He could do for her. She made a desperate effort not to cry. She listened in a way that I am sure nothing but God’s hand upon her could have made her listen, and took ” A Saviour for You” (in French), promising to read it, and thanking me over and over again. The remaining few minutes I was in the house she was as respectful and quiet as one could wish. I also got a talk with her old mother. So if God grants this to be the checking of this poor girl in what I should imagine to be a very downward path, was it not well worth getting out of the groove of one’s usual comforts and civilities?

Irritating vs. Irritate-able

Posted on September 29, 2014 by Barbara Harper

One of my sons, when he was a youngster, got hold of the word “irritating” – as in, “Mo-ooom, he’s irritating me.” Now, we tried to teach our boys not to irritate each other on purpose, not to hit, tease, “bother,” bait, infringe on the possessions or person of the other, etc. But sometimes in just everyday living together, we’re going to get irritated with each other. Someone in the innocence of their heart can make too much noise, be somewhere I was going to be or use something I was about to use, etc. So, after listening to whatever had irritated my young son, sometimes I would deal with the issue, but sometimes I would say something like, “You need to work on not being so irritate-able” (Spelled and pronounced that way on purpose for emphasis). That was not a satisfying answer. The problem is with the other guy, Mom! You need to make him stop!

I find myself getting far too irritated far too often. Sometimes it’s the other thing or person that is being irritating, or causing the issue: the ~~stupid~~ recalcitrant computer, the driver who wasn’t watching what he was doing, etc. But too often, it’s just a matter of my own irritate-ableness. Touchiness, my mom used to call it. I started to list my most frequent irritants, but we all have our own (and I don’t want to offend anyone 🙂 ).

So what can I do when I am feeling irritated?

1. Fix the issue, if possible. Find out if there is something wrong with the computer, leave early so every red light isn’t aggravating, slow down and take the necessary time to accomplish something so haste doesn’t create more problems, gently ask the other person to refrain from or change whatever they are doing,etc..

2. Forbear. A former pastor used to say forbearing was just good old-fashioned putting up with each other. In Ephesians 4:1-3, Paul says, “I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called, With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love; Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” Not just forbearing, but forbearing in love. “Above all, keep fervent in your love for one another, because love covers a multitude of sins,” I Peter 4:8. Colossians 3:12-14 says, “Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering; Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye. And above all these things put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness.”

3. Humble myself. The verses mentioned speak of humility and meekness. Who am I to think that the entire world should revolve around my whims and preferences?

4. Focus on the other person. Those verses also speak of love. Instead of focusing on that irritant, I need to focus on that person as another child of the Father whom He loves every bit as much as He loves me and seek ways to serve him or her.

5. Do unto others as I would have them do unto me. I need to remember that I’m probably unwittingly irritating someone else sometimes who is graciously (I hope) being forbearing with me. I need to handle the irritations that come from other people as graciously as I would want them to handle mine.

6. Don’t make excuses. There are certain times and seasons and hormones and circumstances that make one more susceptible to irritability. I admit it is really hard for me to be civil, much less loving, when I haven’t had enough sleep. And during certain hormonal surges I’ve wondered how in the world God expected me not to blow up at someone with all that going on. But He gives grace when we ask Him and rely on Him for it.

7. Behold our God. II Corinthians 3:18 says we’re changed more and more into Christ’s likeness as we behold Him. When I look inside and tell myself I need to be more kind, loving, forbearing, etc., I get discouraged and fail because I don’t have it in myself. “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not” (Romans 7:18). But when I look at Him, that irritability seems to just melt away.

“Even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye.” Colossians 3:13b.

“Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God. Romans 3:24-25.

“Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?” Romans 2:4.

“And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed, The Lord, The Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth.” Exodus 34:6.

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance.” Galatians 5:22-23.

“The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy.” Psalm 103:8.

“The Lord is gracious, and full of compassion; slow to anger, and of great mercy. The Lord is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works.” Psalm 145:8-9.

8. Pray. Something that I pray for myself and my loves ones often is Colossians 1:9-14:

9 For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding;

10 That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God;

11 Strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power, unto all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness;

12 Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light:

13 Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son:

14 In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins.

Verse 9 reminds me that I need His strength and power to be patient and longsuffering, and that He will even enable me to do it with joyfulness!

Have you found any other tips for dealing with irritability?

To Behold Thee

Posted on September 28, 2014 by Barbara Harper

From weariness of sin I turn at last, O Lord, to Thee
My eyes and heart grown dim from looking long on vanity.
I venture toward thy radiance then, compelled to come by grace
And in the pages of Thy word behold Thy lovely face.

(Refrain)
Face of glory, turned upon me
I cannot but Thee adore.
To behold Thee, O my Saviour,
Is to love Thee more and more.

Each grace in all its fullness on Thy countenance I see.
Great tenderness of mercy, blazing light of purity.
Thine eyes are wells and love and wisdom, settled peace Thy brow,
Before the whole of perfect beauty I in worship bow.

(Refrain)

When someday I before Thee stand, a debtor to Thy grace,
And gaze with heaven’s eyes upon the brightness of Thy face,
Transformed into Thy likeness, all my sin thrust far away,
With millions of redeemed ones I will lift my voice and say:

Face of glory turned upon me
I cannot but Thee adore.
To behold Thee, O my Savior,
Is to love Thee more and more.
To behold Thee, O my Savior,
Is to love Thee more and more.

Words: Eileen Berry

Music: Dan Forrest

To hear this beautiful hymn, go here and click on “Listen”

But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord,
are changed into the same image from glory to glory,
even as by the Spirit of the Lord.
II Corinthians 3:18

I Could Not Do Without Thee

Posted on September 21, 2014 by Barbara Harper

The first time I heard this hymn was from an ensemble visiting our church, and I was riveted. I thought it was a new hymn, but looking it up after I got home, I saw it was written by Frances Ridley Havergal in1873. I like the newer melody better, but I don’t know who wrote it.

I have usually only heard it sung with these four stanzas, but cyberhymnal.org lists several more.

I could not do without Thee
O Savior of the lost,
Whose precious blood redeemed me
At such tremendous cost.
Thy righteousness, thy pardon
Thy precious blood, must be
My only hope and comfort,
My glory and my plea.

I could not do without Thee,
I cannot stand alone,
I have no strength or goodness,
No wisdom of my own;
But Thou, beloved Savior,
Art all in all to me,
And weakness will be power
If leaning hard on Thee.

I could not do without Thee,
O Jesus, Savior dear;
E’en when my eyes are holden,
I know that Thou art near.
How dreary and how lonely
This changeful life would be,
Without the sweet communion,
The secret rest with Thee!

I could not do without Thee,
For years are fleeting fast,
And soon in solemn loneness
The river must be passed;
But Thou wilt never leave me,
And though the waves roll high,
I know Thou wilt be near me,
And whisper, “It is I.”

The first time I heard it I was struck with the repetition of “lone,” “alone,” and “loneness.” I was feeling very much alone at the time because Jim was traveling a lot, and I was reminded that I am never alone with Christ, and that’s not just a trite saying but a meaningful reality. And then the second stanza has been a help to me so many times. We truly have no strength, goodness, or wisdom of our own, but because of the redemption mentioned in the first stanza, we can experience the strength in the second stanza.