Our Valleys Are God’s Peaks

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In Vaneetha Rendall Risner’s book, The Scars That Have Shaped Me , she shares an illustration that friends had shared with her. A counselor had asked her friends to make a timeline of the high and low points of their lives, briefly describe each one, and then connect them into up and down graphs. After spending some time on this project, the friends finally finished. Then the counselor asked them to turn their charts upside down. Why? To point out that what we consider the “low” times of life are often the times God is most at work in us, or when we come to know Him significantly better.

“God sees our lowest moments as our spiritual highs because that is when he is doing the deepest work in us…from them come our most significant growth and our greatest dependence on God.”

It’s not that God doesn’t work in the “good” or “high” times: He does, and those are blessings from Him. But it’s usually when we’re experiencing hardship, doubt, pain, need, or other trials that we most seek Him, and, as He promised, find Him. It’s in our weakness that we turn to and depend on His strength.

Vaneetha tried this exercise for herself and found the same observation to be true. She writes:

I often reflect back on that exercise when I’m struggling. Because when I’m in the pit, I’d like to eliminate all the valleys on my graph. I’d be thrilled if the line of my life story featured frequent upward peaks—times of success and fulfillment—but otherwise be mostly flat. That way there would be no more valleys, no more anguish or tears or pain. Just happiness. And that sounds wonderful.

But turning that graph around, I would see a boring, unexamined, and unfruitful spiritual life. An untested life marked by superficiality and entitlement. A life filled with temporary happiness but little lasting joy.

Suffering and trials are gifts. They refine my character, draw me to God, deepen my faith. They have shaped my theology and carved into me the capacity for great joy. In many ways they are God’s greatest blessings.

This gives a new perspective to the phrase “mountaintop experience.” That phrase comes from the time Peter, James, and John accompanied Jesus to a mountain and saw Him wondrously transfigured, talking to Moses and Elijah. Right on the heels of that glorious, once-in-a-lifetime experience, they descended the mountain to find the other disciples unable to help a demon-possessed boy. Often right after we experience some kind of glorious high point with the Lord, we run into a low point, and we wonder what happened and why we can’t feel those “highs” all the time. Vaneetha comments:

In the midst of trials, I rarely feel that spiritual growth is happening. Often I’m depressed and just trying to hang on. Life is gray, and I don’t see God’s work at all. But in retrospect, it is in the hanging on, the trusting in the dark, the waiting patiently for God, where real growth occurs.

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:8-9, ESV). What we would consider the lowest points of our lives He might consider the highest points, because those are the times we most turned to Him, leaned on Him, learned of Him, and grew in our experience and love of Him.

And you just can’t beat the view from the mountaintop.

(Sharing with Inspire Me Monday, Literary Musing Monday, Tell His Story, Let’s Have Coffee, Porch Stories, Faith on Fire)

Friday’s Fave Five

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FFF daisies
It’s Friday, time to look back over the blessings of the week with Susanne at Living to Tell the Story and other friends.

I don’t know where this week has gone! Without these few moments to reflect on it and remember some highlights, it would be gone from memory, too.

1. Grandparents Day last Sunday. Jason, Mittu, and Timothy brought over a cake, flowers for great-grandma and me, snacks and a personally-drawn, one-of-a-kind piece of artwork made by Timothy for Granddad. 🙂

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Granddad on his tractor, by Timothy.

2. Three nights off from cooking is unusual! I asked for one and my husband offered the other two.

3. Getting plants shaped up. Jim does the yard work, but I try to keep up with the planters and roses. They were badly in need of deadheading and a little snipping. I think our hanging baskets are about done, but a couple of petunias there are staging a final showing.

4. Small victories and answers to prayer, just between God and myself.

5. Using gift cards at Hobby Lobby and starting a new project. Just when I am going to work on it, I don’t know. Here’s a sneak peak:

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Happy Friday!

Book Review: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

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GuernseyIn the novel The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society By Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows, Juliet Ashton had begun writing a lighthearted newspaper column during WWII under the name Izzy Bickertstaff. Her editors thought the country needed a bit of humor and uplift. After the war, the columns were collected and published as a book, making Juliet and her publishers a lot of money.

But now the war is over, and Juliet wants to write something more meaningful under her own name. She’s not sure what, though, until she receives a note from someone on Guernsey named Dawsey who had somehow ended up with a book she had given away about Charles Lamb. During WWII, Guernsey and surrounding Channel islands were occupied by the Germans. Most of the children were evacuated off the island, and for five years the island didn’t have contact with the outside world. As the island had been isolated during the war and no booksellers had come back yet, Dawsey can’t find other books by or about Lamb, and he  wonders if she might have access to some. In their correspondence, he mentions the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.

Understandably curious, Juliet asks to know more about the society. It was invented one night when a few neighbors out after curfew were stopped and questioned by a guard (why they were out was another interesting story). One of them made up on the spot the literary society that they had supposedly just come from and even mentioned a German book. Thankfully the guard was a literary type and let them go. But now they had to implement such a society to avoid suspicion, so they began to meet regularly to discuss books they were reading. Some of the members were not avid readers, but they found at least one book to read and talk about.

The more Juliet hears, the more she feels maybe this is what she needs to write about. The book is made of of correspondence mostly between Juliet and her publisher, a few friends, and the various members of the society.

Some of their stories are comical, some are poignant, others are quite sad. Some were helped by the books they read; others were helped more by the camaraderie and community. And a fair bit of drama occurs in Juliet’s life as well, and her life changes in several ways she could not have predicted.

It seemed like everyone was talking about this book a few years ago, and I had always intended to read it “someday.” When I saw a film was being made of the book, I decided now was the time. I have not seen the film yet, but I knew I wanted to read the book first.

Epistolary novels are not my favorite form of story, but it works for this novel. You would have thought that it would be hard to “show rather than tell” through letters, which are a way of telling. But Mary Ann Shaffer and her niece, Annie Barrows, do this masterfully.

Unfortunately there is a smattering of bad words, including the Lord’s name taken in vain. There are no sexual scenes, but one woman has a baby out of wedlock, a couple of men are characterized as homosexual, and mention is made of women who fraternize with the Germans sexually.

But the characters are charming, and I love the way the story unfolds. I hated to see the story come to an end.

I’ve read much WWII fiction, but nothing that I can recall from this period of recovery just after the war. Amid the joy and relief of the war ending and the Germans retreating, there were still shortages, missing people who had been sent off to camps, buildings defaced or marred by Germans who had taken them over, not to mention the emotional trauma many carried with them for a long while afterward.

I listened to the audiobook wonderfully read by a number of people. At first it was a little hard to distinguish between some of the characters, but after a while I got them straight. I ordered the book as well, and it contains a wonderful afterword by Annie Barrows. Most of the book was written by Mary Ann Shaffer, but her health began to fail during the rewrites, and she asked Annie to step in. Evidently Mary Ann had always been a wonderful storyteller, and the family was so pleased that her work was received so well.

I’ll close with a few of my favorite quotes:

That’s what I love about reading: one tiny thing will interest you in a book, and that tiny thing will lead you to another book, and another bit there will lead you onto a third book. It’s geometrically progressive – all with no end in sight, and for no other reason than sheer enjoyment.

Perhaps there is some secret sort of homing instinct in books that brings them to their perfect readers. How delightful if that were true.

All my life I thought that the story was over when the hero and heroine were safely engaged — after all, what’s good enough for Jane Austen ought to be good enough for anyone. But it’s a lie. The story is about to begin, and every day will be a new piece of the plot.

Because there is nothing I would rather do than rummage through bookshops, I went at once to Hastings & Sons Bookshop upon receiving your letter. I have gone to them for years, always finding the one book I wanted – and then three more I hadn’t known I wanted.

Your questions regarding that gentleman are very delicate, very subtle, very much like being smacked in the head with a mallet…it’s a tuba among the flutes.

Reading good books ruins you for enjoying bad books.

(Sharing with Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books, Carole’s Books You Loved)

Book Review: Reclaim Your Life From IBS

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I hadn’t planned to review this book at first, but then I thought it might be helpful to others.

IBS stands for irritable bowel syndrome. I’ll let you look up the symptoms elsewhere if you don’t know them. But the bathroom-related issues of IBS can cause anxiety (about being able to find a bathroom when you need one, having issues at an inopportune time, etc.) That anxiety can in turn exacerbate IBS symptoms. It’s not that IBS is a disease of the mind, but our thoughts and anxieties can make it worse, creating more anxiety which creates worse symptoms, creating a vicious cycle.

IBSReclaim Your Life from IBS: A Scientifically Proven Plan for Relief without Restrictive Diets by Melissa G. Hunt deals primarily with the cognitive aspect of IBS, the way we think about it.

Dr. Hunt begins with other diseases of what she calls the “gut” which have to be ruled out before an IBS diagnosis can be made. Someone who thinks they might have IBS might actually have something else which has a specific treatment, so it’s important to be checked out. Then she describes the processes involved in digestive issues, from the nervous system to gut bacteria.

Dr. Hunt shares some relaxation techniques to help us dial back from panic mode. Then she explains the “cognitive model of stress management.” Basically, what and how we believe and think influences us one way or another. She gives the example of seeing a friend across the street and waving at her, but receiving no response. Our minds can take off imagining scenarios – that our friend is mad at us for something, that she’s snubbing us., etc., when probably she just didn’t see us. Applying that to IBS, when we experience gut twinges or gurgles when we’re out or preparing to go out, we can panic, thinking we need to get to a bathroom fast. But every twinge and gurgle doesn’t mean an attack is coming on. Or we can panic about the possibility of needing to step out to go to the bathroom during a work meeting, thinking everyone will think less of us and we might even be jeopardizing future promotions, when in reality no one will think anything of it (plus everyone probably has to do that at some time).

Dr Hunt also shares ways to eliminate avoidance: people with IBS can become experts in avoiding situations where they think they might have problems. Some of what Dr. Hunt shares here is the same process as overcoming phobias: exposing ourselves to whatever we’re fearful of a little bit at a time as we become more comfortable. One example she gives is that of someone who avoids commuter trains because they don’t have bathrooms.  First she suggests just visiting the train station for a while until that nervousness we get just from being there subsides (which might take multiple attempts). Then, we might get on the train just until the next stop. Once we can do that without nervousness, then we might go two stops, etc.

Finally she discusses some of the dietary and medicinal approaches to IBS. She stresses that there is no one IBS diet that works for everyone or particular foods that everyone must avoid. She discusses some of the most common foods that might give IBS patients trouble.

I hope I never have to see a therapist, but I hope that if I do, I can find one as practical and down to earth as Dr. Hunt rather the ethereal and New Age-y kinds I have read elsewhere. Much of what she has to say, especially about our thoughts, can be applied to many situations beyond IBS:

Cognitive interventions are not about “pretending” that things are going well if they’re not. In fact, this wouldn’t help even if you tried it, because you wouldn’t believe it. Rather, cognitive interventions are about helping you see the world as accurately and objectively as possible. The problem is that many, many people do have negative biases or filters that they use to interpret situations in their lives. If you do this routinely and without realizing it, you will be a lot more stressed than you need to be. If you have been entertaining lots of negatively biased automatic thoughts, then seeing the world more accurately should bring about a great deal of relief. In other words: Don’t believe everything you think (p. 66).

Dr. Hunt’s style is easy to read and understand. I am happy to recommend this book.

(Sharing with Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books, Literary Musing Monday, Carole’s Books You Loved)

 

Remembering…

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It’s hard to believe it has been 17 years since the horror of 9/11. Though the days that followed were grief-stricken, I miss the coming together as a nation and the expression of faith from those days.

I saw the following on a couple of different places on Facebook. I don’t know who originally put it together. But it’s a poignant reminder that we never know what a day may bring forth.

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It also reminds me of a quote from Jim Elliot, who died just before the age of 30 at the hand of others: “When the time comes to die, make sure that all you have to do is die!”

Enjoy every day as if it were your last, and be ready in case it is.

I am not sure how many of those we lost on 9/11 had made arrangements for eternity. I hope they all did. If you have not, please read more here.

Disappointment

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No one likes to disappoint others. We’ve experienced disappointment when others have failed to live up to our expectations, and we don’t want to inflict that on anyone else. Too many people only give half an effort, or are too self-absorbed to extend themselves to others, and we don’t want to be like that. We want to do what we can for others, and we want the important people in our lives happy with us.

Those perfectly natural desires can become an unhealthy obsession, leading us to become frantic “people-pleasers” motivated by self-love due to how good we feel when we meet others’ needs.

But aside from that lopsided perspective, it’s certainly not wrong to want to please others in whatever legitimate way we can. Yet we soon find that we just can’t do everything that everyone would like for us to. Randy Alcorn wrote once that he had to say no to about 99% of the requests that came his way. The standard reply his assistant sends to most requests is, “Randy has to say no to the great majority of good opportunities so that he can say yes to the very few God wants him to do.”

It’s a hard balance to maintain, to be available to minister to others as God wants us to, even to the point of pain and self-sacrifice sometimes, yet not to spread ourselves so thin that everything suffers. Randy honed in on the key: finding out what God wants us to do. You’ve heard the old illustration of the professor showing his students that pouring in the small things into a jar first left no room for the big ones. But when the big items were put in first, and then the smaller ones fit around them.

And we can trust God for the disappointment this will cause others. If He does not want us to meet their request, He has another person or plan in mind. Maybe your lack of availability will be the catalyst someone else needs to step up. Maybe a lack of someone to fill that need will lead those involved to see that that program or ministry or whatever needs to be set aside or changes need to be made. During the few short years we home-schooled, we were part of a large home school support group that had grown from a handful of moms. When the lady in charge of it had to step down due to the birth of her seventh child, the group floundered for the next year. But in the meantime, the moms decided they really did want the group to continue, and several different ladies took different aspects of it. It had gotten too big for one person, but no one really realized that until that person had to step down.

One thing we learn when others disappoint us or have to say no to a request is that they are not God. Only He can meet all of our needs. I can’t meet all of anyone else’s needs, either. I don’t have to feel guilty that I can’t.That lack may cause them to lean more on Him.

But even He disappoints people. When Jesus lived in Earth, other people had certain expectations of what the Messiah would do, but Jesus did not meet them. Once, after healing and casting demons out of people the day before, Jesus went out alone to pray. When the disciples found Him, they told Him everyone was looking for Him, presumably to come back and keep healing. But He said, “Let us go on to the next towns, that I may preach there also, for that is why I came out.” Though He did heal as part of His ministry on earth, His main purpose was to preach.

In those cases, Jesus didn’t disappoint them deliberately, but He couldn’t do what others wanted because it wasn’t in line with His and the Father’s mission. Sometimes those people were seeking their own desires or they misunderstood His purposes and character. Part of their adjustment to right understanding was having wrong expectations unfulfilled.

Other times, he disappointed people temporarily because He had a greater purpose in mind. Mary and Martha grieved when Jesus did not respond to their summons that Lazarus was sick until it was too late. But a greater miracle than healing awaited them all, and a greater demonstration of who He was. If He had come at their first request,  everyone would have expected Him to heal Lazarus. And if Lazarus had died while Christ was present and then Jesus resurrected him, there may have been some accusation of collusion or trickery. Sometimes He has to say no to this request because down the road He’s sending that.

In Paul’s case, God said no to his request that his thorn be removed because God wanted Paul to know His grace in a special way, and that example has provided comfort for countless readers even hundreds of years later.

Parents understand that they have to disappoint their children sometimes. Though they’d dearly love to meet every request, to do so would be unhealthy and unwise. Children don’t always understand why they can’t eat candy for breakfast, or why they need a nap, or why they can’t play in the street or go to the zoo. Learning that we can’t have everything we want when we want it is is a life lesson we all need and a step toward maturity. Then we understand that everything we want isn’t good for us and it’s a mercy we don’t always get it. Likewise, though we don’t always understand what our heavenly Father is up to, we trust His love and wisdom when He delays or refuses a request.

Sometimes we disappoint people without even realizing it. We didn’t know they had certain expectations. We won’t know unless they tell us. Newly married couples experience this as they adjust to living with each other and getting to know each other better, and of course people interacting in almost any way can experience this. If someone disappoints us in that way, we don’t sit back and fume or withdraw from them because “they should have known.” We have to decide whether we should just overlook the issue and manage our expectations or have a talk with the other person, but we don’t expect them to be mind readers.

There have been times I firmly believed the person telling me “No” was in the wrong. Someone instilled in me a long time ago the principle that “You can’t say no until you pray about it.” Sometimes I have faced opportunities that were too big for me, yet I did not feel the liberty to say no to them, and I saw God work and provide in marvelous ways that I would have missed if I had followed my first inclination and said no. But it was not my place to convince others that God really wanted them to do what I asked. As I appealed to God, He could either change the other person’s heart or supply someone else to meet the request.

If disappointment is a feeling that results from someone else failing us, Jesus experienced that every day. But the time that most touches my heart was in Gethsemane. Many times Jesus went out to pray alone, but that time He wanted the companionship of His friends to watch with Him before the events leading up to the cross were going to start. But they fell asleep instead.

If we’re in authority over someone else, as a parent, supervisor, teacher, mentor, etc., sometimes we have to deal with their failure to meet expectations in more stringent ways. Sometimes a rebuke, reminder, further instruction and training, or even punishment is needed. Jesus certainly employed each of those when dealing with people. But sometimes, as in Gethsemane, He extended grace, acknowledging that those who disappointed Him were only human. “As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him. For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust” (Psalm 103:13-14, ESV).

And if someone actually sins against us, the Bible prescribes methods of confronting them and admonitions to forgive them.

So, to come full circle: when others disappoint us, we respond in whatever way is needed. If it is a matter of actual sin, we may need to take other action. If we’re in a position of authority over them, we don’t let them get away with laziness or lack of effort, but we understand that no one is perfect. If we’re not their authority, we may try to persuade them to take the matter to God before saying no. But if they still say no, we leave it with the Lord to change their hearts or to provide another way.

And because we want to treat others as we want to be treated, we don’t say no to others callously or lightly. We seek the Lord to see whether this request is from Him, even if it seems beyond us, and we depend on Him to enable us. But we understand that we cannot meet the needs of everyone in our sphere of influence. We are not God: only He is. If we have to say no, we do so kindly and encourage others to seek Him for their needs, trusting that He will either meet their needs in another way or give them the grace to do without. If we’ve sinned, we confess that to the Lord and the other person, repent, and do what we can to make restitution. If we have disappointed someone unwittingly, we apologize, talk out the issues, and correct our actions accordingly as much as possible.

But on either side of disappointment, we come to know that no one loves us as thoroughly as God does, no one else is as wise, no one else has the power and provision to meet all our needs. And even if He seems to disappoint us sometimes, we trust that in His love and wisdom, He has something better in mind than what we originally wanted. And sometimes He teaches us, grows us, shapes us, matures us through lessons of disappointment.

And now, O Lord, for what do I wait? My hope is in you.
Psalm 39:7, ESV

What have you learned from disappointment?

(Sharing with Inspire Me Monday, Literary Musing Monday, Tell His Story, Let’s Have Coffee, Woman to Woman Word-filled Wednesday, Wise Woman, Porch Stories, Faith on Fire. Links do not imply 100% endorsement)

Laudable Linkage

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I don’t usually do these every Saturday, but I accumulated a lot of good reads this week.

10 Reasons Americans Go to Church – and 9 Reasons They Don’t, HT to Lisa. “But this study suggests that there is an under-served group of believers who seem like they’d actually like to go to religious services — if only someone could help get them there and welcome them when they arrive.”

God’s No Is a Yes, HT to True Woman.

Ask Someone Older Than You, HT to Lisa. Advice on how to get help in making an important decision.

How to Ruin Your Life in Your Twenties, HT to True Woman.

You Are Not Your Temptations, HT to True Woman.

What Is Encouragement? HT to Challies. Yes, yes, yes! I wrote recently about well-meant encouragement that is too self-focused and “puffs up.” This post describes what encouragement actually is and does. If I had a rating system for blog posts, this would garner the ultimate number of stars.

What Do People Mean by “Coming Into the Presence of God?” HT to Challies. This is something I have contemplated, too. I’ve seen many people say that we should “invite” God into situations (or worse yet, ask Him to “show up“). But He is always with us. I suspect the mindset might be something like that of people in the same room but all on their phones or doing something else, then a call to meet together has everyone putting everything else aside to pay attention to the other people. But God is always paying attention, never distracted from us. So it’s not that we need to invite Him in – we need to lay aside our distractions and focus on Him.

Cringing at Church: What It’s Like as an Autistic Person in Your Congregation, HT to Challies.

Was the Early Church Communist? HT to Challies. No, but some think so. Here’s why not.

The Boy Who’d Never Tasted an Apple, HT to Story Warren. A parable for kids about sex.

And, finally, I couldn’t help laughing along with this:

Happy Saturday!

Friday’s Fave Five

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FFF daisies
It’s Friday, time to look back over the blessings of the week with Susanne at Living to Tell the Story and other friends.

It’s been a busy week! Here are some of the best parts:

1. Labor Day. It was nice to have a Monday off and an excuse for grilled burgers with the usual accompaniments. Jason, Mittu, and Timothy had not been feeling well for nearly a week, but were able to come over that evening.

2. Getting my physical over with. Not something I look forward to, but it’s nice to get it over with for another year. No major issues this time, thankfully. And I even had some good news: My cholesterol numbers were much improved from last time. The only major change I made was switching to oatmeal and whole wheat toast for breakfast most mornings (as opposed to the bacon and egg sandwiches I used to have…).

3. Successful blood draws and nurses who pray over them. My veins don’t like to give up their contents. It usually takes a few attempts for a nurse to draw blood from them. This time, just before the third try, the nurse prayed, “Lord Jesus, help us,” and when the blood finally flowed, she said, “Thank you, Jesus.”

4. Finally getting a haircut. The stylist I like only works two days a week because she has young children and wants to be with them rather than working full time. I support and applaud that, and I really like her personally. But sometimes it’s hard to get in on the days she’s there. Our schedules came together this week, though, and I feel less shaggy. 🙂

5. Getting a number of little things done: getting a package to the post office, making a couple of deliveries, clearing accumulated clutter off a counter, and doing some rearranging in the pantry. I had requested for my birthday these plastic baskets with handles. They hold some of the small, loose items in the pantry, and the handle makes it easier to pull them out to get what I need.

Bonus: Jason sent me this photo of Timothy “having a meeting.” His daddy works from home, so he’s seen plenty of such meetings. 🙂

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Happy Friday!

Book Review: Helen Roseveare: On His Majesty’s Service

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Roseveare Helen Roseveare was a missionary to the Belgian Congo in Africa, later named Zaire, from 1953-1973. I first became aware of her through Faithful Women and Their Extraordinary God by Noel Piper several years ago. I wanted to read more about her, so when I saw Helen Roseveare: On His Majesty’s Service by Irene Howat on sale for the Kindle app, I decided to try it, even though it was part of the Trailblazer series of biographies for children.

The first few chapters deal with Helen’s childhood in England: terrorizing nannies with her brother, moving several times due to her father’s job, going to boarding school in Wales. She had a strong desire to be first and best at as much as she could, and she didn’t make friends very easily. In a Sunday School class, she decided she wanted to be a missionary even before she became a Christian. Confirmation classes in her church caused her to take a more serious look at herself, but it was in a camp some years later that she became a believer. She became quite conscientious.

As a teenager during WWII, Helen wrestled with the devastation and unfairness of it all, especially the unfitness of young people losing their lives. Once when a German plane was shot down, Helen was horrified to learn that her mother was among the people trying to save the young man, though he later died. Her mother explained that he was just a boy fighting for his country, like their boys, and had a home and family.

Helen became involved in helping at camps and the GCU (Girl Crusader’s Union) while in college. She never lost her desire to be a missionary doctor, and soon after college she went through missionary training and then went to the Congo. She was plunged into medical service right away. From her earliest days she felt the need to train the national workers and open a nursing school. She had to set up a hospital from the ground up, with students and church members and even patients helping.

But civil unrest was rumbling in the distance and drawing ever closer. Helen had opportunity to leave many times, but she felt she should remain. Finally rebel soldiers did take over Helen’s area. Probably because this is a children’s book, the author did not go into much detail or mention the multiple rapes Helen endured. She sums it up this way:

Things too terrible to tell happened to her at the hands of Congolese rebel soldiers, things so horrible and shocking that she wished she were dead. In a way that we cannot understand they were part of God’s plan for her and she knew that, even at the time. With her body battered and broken and her back teeth kicked out, Helen survived when others did not. But she survived to endure further months of terror.

After several months of captivity and cruelty, Helen and a few others were released and sent back to England for a long recovery.

After fifteen months, went back to Africa, to Zaire, building more hospitals and training more medical workers.

When Helen went back to England years later, she stayed active speaking at schools, GCU gatherings, and churches. When someone wanted to make a film of her life, she traveled back to a warm welcome in Zaire and was thrilled to see how the work was progressing.

One of the most well-known stories of her life was one I had heard but didn’t realize happened to Helen until I read it in Faithful Women and Their Extraordinary God. It’s told in detail here. A woman had come to the hospital in labor with a premature baby. They could not save the woman, but the baby was safely delivered. Yet they had no way to keep the baby warm: they usually used hot water bottles, but were out. The baby also had a two-year-old sister. When Helen had prayer with the orphan children the next day, she told them of the little girl and baby and the need for hot water bottles. One ten-year-old girl named Ruth began to spontaneously pray:

God, please send a hot water bottle so that this little baby doesn’t die. And, God, it will be no use sending it tomorrow because we need it today. And, God, while you’re at it, will you send a dolly for the baby’s sister who is crying because her mummy has died.

Helen “didn’t think the Lord could do that.” But that very afternoon a truck delivered a parcel containing soap, bandages, babe sweaters…and a hot water bottle and a doll! Helen tells this story here:

Since this book was published in 2008, it doesn’t contain information about Helen’s death in 2016 at the age of 91. Zaire is now known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The writing in this book is not the best: it’s a little choppy, with several odd scenes involving unnamed people that I think were made up in an effort to illustrate something in Helen’s life. But It’s still a good book overall, with a good overview of Helen’s life.

(Sharing with Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books,  Literary Musing Monday, Carole’s Books You Loved)

 

The Ministry of the Mundane

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One morning I chafed over having to go to the grocery store – again. I had just gone the day before, but that store didn’t have everything I needed, plus we were getting ready for company and needed a few extras. I groused inwardly about spending way too much of my life in stores and how I had other things I’d much rather be doing.

All of a sudden the thought came to mind, “She bringeth her food from afar.”

You might recognize that as part of the Proverbs 31 woman‘s description. In fact, a lot of what she did was everyday, seemingly mundane stuff: planting, cooking, sewing, weaving, buying, selling. In those days, with no Amazon, super Wal-Marts, or even grocery or clothing stores, most of what she made for herself, her family, and her home was done by hand, from scratch.

Thankfully I don’t have to weave my own cloth. I don’t even have to go too much “afar” to gather my food. We have four grocery stores within a ten-minute drive, and all but one of them lets customers order online and pick up their groceries curbside. So I really don’t have anything to complain about.

It helps me to realize, or remember, that gathering and preparing food is part of what I am supposed to do. Somebody has to do it. My husband doesn’t mind going to the store for me sometimes, but I don’t like to ask him since he already works more than 40 hours a week and then has yard work and house maintenance on top of that.

But realizing it’s part of my job helps me not to chafe: this is just as important as anything else that seems more valuable. It’s part of my ministry to my family.

I’ve wondered why so much of life is made of the mundane. A friend who was a missionary said that when she first went to the field, she had no idea she would be spending so much time in the kitchen. I remember Elisabeth Elliot writing about dealing with a recalcitrant stove or heater and wondering at how much time, especially in a third world country, is made up of such activities. I remember hearing a missionary lady once say that in her country, they still had milkmen pick up their empty milk bottles, and part of her testimony and reputation involved having clean milk bottles out on her porch at the appointed time.

As I have been pondering these things the last few days, I came up with a few possible reasons so many mundane tasks.

The rubber meets the road in those everyday duties. It’s easy to think about loving and serving our fellow man or woman while at home in a quiet, pleasant room with our Bibles. It’s another thing when our fleshly nature bumps up against each other in the real world.

A good work ethic is a testimony to others. Luther was purported to have said, “The Christian shoemaker does his Christian duty not by putting little crosses on the shoes, but by making good shoes.” This article disputes that. I understand the article’s view that it’s not something Luther would have said, but I don’t totally agree with their logic. Perhaps you’ve known someone who thought they served God better by witnessing to people than by doing their job. But we’re admonished to do our work “heartily, as unto the Lord.” We’ve all experienced the pangs of faulty workmanship, employees or even ministry partners who do a slipshod job, creating problems and frustration for fellow-workers, bosses, customers. Sure, we have Mary and Martha‘s example, and we know it’s possible to have wrong priorities, and we need to set aside the earthly for the heavenly sometimes. But when it’s time to work, it’s time to do it well and efficiently.

These tasks teach patience, endurance, perseverance, fortitude, service, thoughtfulness of others.

I can’t do even these things in the right way and spirit without God’s help and grace. I just stumbled across this quote in my files from Oswald Chambers (source unknown): “The things Jesus did were the most menial of tasks, and this is an indication that it takes all of God’s power in me to accomplish even the most common tasks in His way. Can I use a towel as He did?” God filled the workmen of the tabernacle with “the Spirit of God, with ability and intelligence, with knowledge and all craftsmanship.” He goes on to say, “I have given to all able men ability, that they may make all that I have commanded you” (Exodus 31:1-6, ESV).

Ministry to others can be shown through the mundane. Someone said of Francis and Edith Shaeffer, “As many people were brought to the Lord through Mrs. Schaeffer’s cinnamon buns as through Dr. Schaeffer’s sermons!” Practical help is just as needful as spiritual help.

When Amy Carmichael’s ministry began to change from evangelism to caring for children, she questioned whether God had really called her to be a “nursemaid” when there were so many other needs and ways she could be used. “It was then that she read the words from John 13, how the Lord of glory ‘took a towel and girded Himself.’…never again did she question whether her gifts were being wasted. She knew that the Master never wastes the servant’s time.” (Amy Carmichael of Dohnavur by Frank Houghton)

Mr. Houghton also writes that, “Occasionally someone suggested that character-training of boys and girls…or, still more, the erection of buildings to house them, was not evangelistic work, and therefore not worthy of support.” Amy wrote, “Well, one cannot save and then pitchfork souls into heaven…and as for buildings, souls (in India, at least) are more or less securely fastened into bodies. Bodies cannot be left to lie about in the open, and as you cannot get the souls out and deal with them separately, you have to take them both together.”

We don’t always necessarily have to be doing anything “spiritual” to show forth the fruit of the Holy Spirit. One of my favorite blogger friends writes about what’s going on in her home and family, but even in her homemaking tasks she reflects the spirit of a woman who walks closely with God. She’s not trying to show that: it just shines through her. In everything she shows “a sense of Him.”

Perhaps, too, the weight of physical, everyday tasks is a reminder that we live in a physical world with limitations and constant needs. That reminder increases our anticipation and longing for the day we’ll be released from these bodies and this world.

At any rate, my perspective changed that day. I had no thought of Labor Day when I first started compiling these thoughts, but perhaps it’s appropriate on this particular day to remind ourselves that “In all labor there is profit, But mere talk leads only to poverty” (Proverbs 14:23, NASB).

I still need to remind myself frequently that my physical tasks are as needful and important as any type of ministry task. I can do them as unto the Lord. Sure, there are ways I can improve: e.g, planning better can help reduce the number of trips to the store. And I still have plenty of time for things like reading and writing – much more time than the Proverbs 31 woman had. But I can serve, as she did, with strength, dignity, industriousness, kindness, and reverence. Even at the grocery store.

(Sharing with Inspire Me Monday, Literary Musing Monday, Tell His Story, Let’s Have Coffee, Porch Stories, Faith on Fire)