All About Amma

Part 2

Amy has been called many things:  "The Hero We Need," "Selfless Servant of India." "Hero of the Faith," "Pioneer Missionary," "Torchlighter," "A Woman of Faith," "Rescuer of Precious Gems," "Rescuer by Night." 

I believe that most of these titles would have embarrassed this humble servant of God, all except one - Mother of the Motherless.  That title was her dream, her destiny.

Amy was born in Northern Ireland in 1867.  After a brief stay in Japan, she arrived in India on November 9, 1895, and never left India until her death on January 18, 1951.

Her time in India wasn't easy.  Many of her friends misunderstood her and failed to support her work of saving the children who were often given to the temples and used as prostitutes among other things.  Often she was threatened by physical danger and death for the work she was doing.  An injury and pain finally pinned her to her bed for the last remaining years of her life, but the work went on because she was warrior.

The first six years in India were spent with a group of Indian Christian women who traveled the rural areas evangelizing.  In 1901, a terrified little girl destined to become a temple prostitute was brought to Amy's compound at Dohnavur.  The rest is history - HIStory.

One of my favorite biographies of her is Elisabeth Eliott's A Chance to Die.  Amy's life afforded others a chance to live and herself a chance to lay down her life and follow Him who laid down His life so that we could live.  She followed His holy example by becoming broken bread and poured out wine for all those she met.

Below are a few of my favorite Amy sayings.

You can always give without loving,

but you can never love without giving.

 

It is a safe thing to trust Him to fulfill the desires which He creates.

 

We have all of eternity to celebrate the victories

but only a few short hours before sunset to win them.

 

Give me the love that leads the way,

the faith that nothing can dismay,

the hope no disappointments tire,

the passion that'll burn like fire.

Let me not sink to be a clod.

Make me Thy fuel, Flame of God.

 

 Satan is so much more in earnest than we are.

He buys up opportunity



while we are wondering how much it will cost.

 

A cup brimful of sweet water cannot spill

even one drop of bitter water

however suddenly it is jolted.

 

The pilgrim of love does not need a map or chart.

I know my road, and it leadeth to His heart.

 

God hold us to that which drew us first,

when the Cross was the attraction,

and we wanted nothing else.

 

Joys are always on their way to us.

They are always traveling to us through the darkness of the night.

There is never a night when they are not coming.

 

Let us not be surprised when we have to face difficulties.

When the wind blows hard on a tree, the roots stretch and grow stronger.

Let it be so with us.

Let us not be weaklings yielding to every wind that blows,

but strong in the spirit to resist.

 

Amy was definitely no weakling.  She faced her winds strong in the spirit to resist and died climbing and singing and smiling with her precious gems all around her.

 

God bless you and utterly satisfy your heart . . . with Himself.

~Amy

Adoption

Part 1

Many people that Lanny and I know have adopted children from China - at least six plus families, many of them multiple adoptions.  Whether they know it or not, they have been on our hearts and in our prayers during their adoption process.  We know how difficult that process can be because we tried unsuccessfully to adopt two little gems (Sudha and Mercy) from India thirty-five years ago. 

The process itself seems about the same, but the financial part of it seems to have been greater thirty years ago.  The biggest difference we have noticed seems to be in the attitudes of the people on both sides of the globe. 

Back then, we were met with trial and difficulty and hostility at every turn.  Some of our family and best friends couldn't comprehend why we wanted to do this and were very vocal.  "There are plenty of American kids you could adopt."   All we knew was that we were young, and it seemed like we were going to be unable to have children, and we felt that God wanted us to do this.  I still feel that God wanted us to do this.

To make a really long story short, six plus years, the Indian courts won the battle because our girls who were now in their teens would probably "not be able to become easily acclimated to a new culture at their age."  We had known these lovelies so long.  We couldn't just let go. 

The orphanage suggested that we help by providing them with education.  Sudha wanted to become a nurse and did with our help, and Mercy had fallen in love with one of the young men from the boys' orphanage whom she married.  As a couple, they went to work in their respective orphanages.  

I still pray for them, still love them.  I stopped asking why a long time ago because Amy Carmichael said that faith never asks why. 

One of the biggest ironies in my life is that when we began this adoption process, I did not know who Amy Carmichael was.  I was introduced to her circa 1983 in Jim Eliott's journal.  I don't think he actually knew her as in face to face, but he was certainly enamored with her writings and life and poetry.  In fact, his wife Elisabeth has written a biography of Amy.  

The irony gets even bigger.  Her writings were pretty obscure at that time, and there was no Amazon.com., no way to find them except by old-fashioned exploration. 

Well, in 1984, Jim and Jan Bentley, Pam Simpson, and I traveled across country that summer to a Vineyard conference in Anaheim, California.  One of our stops along the way was at Lindale, Texas, the home of Keith Green and Leonard Ravenhill.  They weren't there, but we were able to access their bookstore where I found a goldmine.  They had many books we had searched for, including Amy's.  We bought everything we could find.
Talk about kids in a candy store.

The ironies aren't finished yet.  I wasn't officially prayed for at Anaheim, at least not for having a baby, but there were several corporate prayers for couples wanting to have children. 

We came home, Jim started Gadsden Vineyard that winter (1984) in his home, Lanny and I were released from our responsibilities at the Lutheran church around Christmas and sent out to join Jim in his efforts, and voila.  I am pregnant.  Esther was the first baby born in our fellowship (August 1985).  Somewhere right around there we were given the third and final notice that the Indian courts had said no to our adoptions.

All of that to say this:  God works in wonderful mysterious ways.  Amy Carmichael, often called "Mother of the Motherless" in India, has been and still is one of the biggest spiritual influences in my life.  Somehow, I don't think I would have discovered her if we had not tried to adopt the girls, and I don't know if we would have easily found her writings if we had not stopped at Keith Green's.  Who knows?

Bonhoeffer, Jim Eliott, Amy Carmichael, George MacDonald - Their writings are readily available now with the internet, but back in the late 70s and into the 80s, things just weren't that easy to find.  I don't even know if I would have known they existed back then if God had not sent someone to mention their name to me.  I didn't know about C. S. Lewis's Narnia until I was an adult.  I read the entire series right before our trip to California.

I am so thankful to God for these folks, these martyrs and missionaries and ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ.  I cherish the truths that I am still finding upon rereading their writings today.  If you need a good read, I would highly recommend any of their works.

Nothing Is Small

Who dares to despise the day of small things?

~Zechariah 4:10

 

 

Sometimes, our journey takes us through lands we never dreamed we would travel, and we just do not know how to navigate the path before us because we have never walked this way before.

 

I have had many such  journeys over the past fourteen years.  Cancerland was the first.

 

In this land, the giant is huge and inflicts damage in ways unimaginable both physically and emotionally.  Through surgery after surgery and treatment and disappointment after disappointment and prayer after prayer, the wanderer becomes focused on the giant and often doesn't see the angels all around.

 

The roads traversing this land have no guardrails, and if the traveler isn't careful, he can fall off into hopelessness and despair and self-pity.  In one of my "fallen" moments, I heard a sweet, sweet voice in my head:  Yes, Jesus loves me.  Yes, Jesus loves me.  Yes, Jesus loves me.  The Bible tells me so.

 

That simple song gave me a foothold.  Then came, "If all I have is Jesus, that is enough.  He is enough."   By this time, I had found a hidden staircase leading upward through the pain and the discouragement.

 

Throughout this entire time, my friends and family had been wonderful to me, but I couldn't see it because my eyes were focused on the giants in the land.   I was focused on surviving this ordeal.

 

One day in the middle of a particularly discouraging few weeks, another word came:  Nothing is small if I am in it.  No thing!  And then, "Stop looking at what you don't have and focus on what you do have."

 

My journey took a dramatic turn for the better after letting these words drench my soul.  From that day onward, I got up and started each day by looking at what I did have - the love of Jesus, of my family, and of my friends.  I could see the blessings now.  These angels were ordinary people who served an extraordinary God, and they showered me with not only love but with flowers and meals and ears that listen and trips to appointments and movies and books and laughter and housecleaning escapades and chocolate and candles and pedicures and massages and coffee and prayers of encouragement and healing and silence when I needed it. 

 

There is no small blessing.  NONE!  I am so thankful for each and every one of these angels and for their gifts to me.  These blessings are the memories I cherish from this journey.  These blessings and the love that surrounded them saved me.  If you were one of these angels, I thank you for showering me with God's love.

 

Each day is vibrantly alive

with the "little" glories of God,

and shamed am I in admitting

a dullness which has caused me great loss -

that I am too often not wary

of golden treasure scattered all about me

and my eyes are unfortunately focused

on something other than what I was meant to see . . .

 

fragrant roses, a fuchsia glory  

standing regally in cut plastic on my front porch . . .

a roast, potatoes, carrots,

chocolate pie on a day that was worse than most . . .

Saturday afternoon, lunch, visiting a nursery,

cool drink, great view, relaxing talk . . .

finding in my mailbox, a pink bandana

left by a friend who'd completed a long 5k walk . . .

ears so quick to listen

to the lunatic ravings of fear . . .

hearts so lovingly creative . . .

hands, so full, so near . . .

 

These were but visible signs 

of love for me -

mighty, flesh-and-blood mirrors

reflective of divine glory.

Hopefully, I am of the teachable sort

and can learn to truly see

the value in little, gigantic things.

Nothing is too small to contain a golden mystery.

~October 7, 2004 

 

 

 

 





Prayer Isn't Only Words

It is never a light thing to press towards the innermost place of His sanctuary.

Put off thy shoes; It is holy ground.

~ Amy Carmichael

 

One of the most popular topics of discussion for teachers, authors, and theologians is prayer.  Even though everyone agrees that we should pray, we still have questions.  How does prayer work?  How do we pray?  Do our prayers really matter?  What should our prayers be composed of - praise, gratitude/thankfulness, requests for needs, intercession, begging/pleading/cutting deals, whining/complaining, questions asking why, last minute cries for help?  Do we even really need to ask since He already knows our needs?

 

Most people approach prayer as language/conversation, and it is.  However, as I grow older, my prayers seem to be starting in a different place than language.  I find that prayer is more of a positioning of myself, a placement of myself in the hands of the Maker of all.

 

Patricia Hampl uses this analogy.  Picture a stream flowing down a mountainside.  God is on top of the mountain; all of our concerns are downstream at the bottom of the mountain where all of the boulders and silt are. 

 

When I approach prayer as just language/conversation, I am starting downhill instead of starting where the stream begins.  If I approach God upstream at the top of the mountain, my perspective changes.  What I see first is Him and His love and mercy and grace and goodness to us all.  Up there I see who I really am and how little my concerns might be in light of Him who is Lord of all.  When I can remember to start upstream, I place my attention on the one who is Lord of all that is or isn't.  

 

I believe this is what the psalmist was encouraging us to do in Psalm 46: 8-11 [Message].

 

Attention all!

See the marvels of God!

Step out of the traffic!

Take a long, loving look at Me, your High God above everything.

 

We have been given an awesome invitation.  "Come.  Behold the works of God.  Be still, cease striving and know that I am God.  I will be exalted."

 

Our lives are so busy that sometimes this invitation gets lost on the buffet along with all of the other reminders of things to do.  Yet, this act of prayer is what gives me life and purpose and identity.  Therefore, I must carve out a place for this stillness.  I cannot wait until I have some free time.  This must be a priority, for this is nourishment for my soul without which I will just simply exist and not thrive or be alive.

 

Philip Yancey says that stillness comes before the "knowing."  In other words, I must be still, be quiet to see the mystery and be otherworldly.  I must be still to simply be.

 

This stillness gives me focus.  As I focus on Him and all that He is, "the things of earth grow strangely dim" and my problems don't seem as big as they once were.  Here my vision is the long view of things, eternity's view.

 

Isaiah 30:15 [ESV] 

Thus said the Lord God, the Holy One.

"In returning (in turning back to me) and rest (stop your own silly efforts)

you shall be saved.

In quietness (settling down) and confidence (trust, complete dependence upon)

shall be your strength.

 

The Latin word for be still is vacate.  So in essence, God is inviting us to take a vacation holiday from trying to be in control.  He is inviting us into a place where we can be vulnerable and honest, where He is who He is and we are who we are in all our shortcomings and needs and emptiness.  Not only does He give us a vacation, but He also gives us gifts.  He responds to us with mercy and grace and forgiveness and healing and love.

 

I'm not advocating giving up the language part of prayer; I'm just issuing an invitation to start in a different place and proceed to the language from there. 

 

Our prayers really do matter.  If they didn't, Jesus wouldn't have prayed as much as He did, and He wouldn't have told us to pray and to ask.  He prayed as if His prayers made a difference, and He is still interceding on our behalf today.  While He walked this earth and was vulnerable as we are and rejected and tested, He clung to prayer as if it were a lifeline.  Prayer is a lifeline, but there is more to it than just the words.  I and my father are one; Him in Me and I in Him.  Jesus did pray words, but He also positioned Himself rightly in the Father and invited us to live, move, and have our being in Him. 

 

 

 

 

 





Confession of Love

Crowded restaurants . . . cards serious, cheesy, risqué - gigantic and small . . . chocolate, chocolate, and more chocolate in stores, on television, in magazines . . . teddy bears dressed in shiny Elvis attire . . . heart antlers . . . gifts galore - jewelry, perfume, lingerie . . .

Yes, love is in the air!  Can't you just hear Barry White?

How did I spend my Valentine's week? 

• In Gatlinburg with my mom, dad, sister, and hubby to celebrate my mom and hubby's birthdays
• Riding on beautiful snow covered mountain roads
• In a chalet napping, putting together a puzzle, watching old movies, laughing and reminiscing
• In a casino losing $20 to a one-armed bandit
• In an outlet mall shopping, finding that one buried treasure I had looked for so long
• Getting a free extra day at the chalet
• Watching my 63-year-old husband snowtube for the first time.  He did really well on the slopes but busted on the escalator going up there.  I have never laughed so much in my entire life.

It was a great week. 

Saturday, Lanny and I ate at Cracker Barrel, bought groceries, and exchanged cards.  Then I went to Vineyard Recovery Church.  Candles lit the room, and heart boxes filled with M & M's surprised us all.  We sang about God's love for us and our love for Him, and even sang a spontaneous song.  Michael taught about God's love, and Barry ended the evening.  Ministry time followed, and as usual Holy Spirit showed up and people were moved by His love. Afterwards, our "core" group met and loved on each other.

Yes, Love was in the air.

This morning, I revisited Amy Carmichael's Gold Cord and just happened to land on more love.
Amy went to South India in 1895 and remained there without break until she entered "into Life" in January 1951.  I discovered her writings in Jim Eliott's journal.  She started an orphanage and school there in India that rescued thousands of children many of whom were destined to be temple prostitutes.  The last few years of her life, she did the work from a bed of pain.  She wasn't just a great woman who did a great work; she was an extraordinary woman who did an extraordinary work because of an extraordinary God.  Below is the fellowship's "Confession of Love."  Those who wanted to work there signed this confession.  It became their covenant with each other and with God.

 

Confession of Love

• My Vow:  Whatsoever Thou sayest unto me, by Thy grace I will do it.
• My Constraint:  Thy love, O Christ, my Lord.
• My Confidence:  Thou art able to keep that which I have committed unto Thee.
• My Joy:  To do Thy will, O Lord.
• My Discipline:  That which I would not choose, but which Thy love appoints.
• My Prayer:  Conform my will to Thine.
• My Motto:  Love to live; live to love.
• My Portion:  The Lord is the portion of mine inheritance.

Teach us, good Lord, to serve Thee more faithfully;

to give and not to count the cost;

to fight and not to heed the wounds;

to toil and not to seek for rest;

to labour and not to ask for any reward save that of knowing that we do Thy will, O Lord.

                                                                                                                                 March 18, 1916

O Lord, bathe us is this kind of love toward You and toward others.  Love like this moves mountains and humbles nations and brings freedom and restoration to all.

 

Brokenness

Lately I seem to be doing a study on brokenness.  Everything I read, everything I listen to brings me back to this topic - even a new song I have written.

Ten years ago I wrote a poem entitled "Only the Broken."  The gist of the poem is that only the broken can mend; only the sick can be healed; only the restless, stilled; only the empty, filled.  You get it?  I was coming out of a year of brokenness at the time.

Some of the worst years and best years of my life have been within the last thirteen years.  My life has read like a Dickens' novel:  It was the best of times; it was the worst of times. 

All of us are broken somewhere, sometime, somehow.  How do we deal with the pain of the brokenness?  Philip Yancey's motto is something like this:  Pain is good; pain is bad; pain can be redeemed. 

• Pain is good because if we eliminate pain, people will destroy themselves because pain is one of the universe's ways of warning us that something is wrong or dangerous. 
• Pain is bad because it is part of the "fall." 
• Pain can be redeemed because out of the worst of the whatevers we face, good can come. (Romans 8)

Ultimately, pain and brokenness are a given. 

Amy Carmichael tells the story of the opal in Gold Cord.

An opal is made only of desert dust, sand, and silica.

It owes its beauty and preciousness to a defect.

It is a stone with a broken heart.

It is full of minute fissures which admit air, and the air refracts the light,
creating the fire in its midst. 

Hence, its lovely hues, its flames.

 

We are very much like the opal if we humble ourselves under the hand of He who loves us most of all.  Then our brokenness can refract His light like the fire in the opal's broken heart, and our pain is redeemed.

He has made everything beautiful in His time.  (Ecclesiastes 3:11) 











Oh, that my heart
would be a holy place,
haunted by His presence,
pulsing with His grace.

My song would then be pure.
My actions would ooze love.
My words would drip with wisdom
and be filled with mercy from above.

I would see as he sees,
know as He knows,
love as He loves,
and go where He goes.

The privilege of my existence,
my loveliest prayer would be:
to pour out my life for Him
as He did so for me.

       ~ a birthday gift from above
                 May 2014

All About the Gold, 'Bout the Gold, 'Bout the Gold

Lately, especially after reading William Penn's No Cross, No Crown and studying Deuteronomy, I have been thinking about holiness.  There is holiness imparted to us through the finished work of Christ on the cross, but there is an echo of, "Be holy because I am Holy," throughout every book in the New Testament.  

After initially meeting Jesus and asking Him into our hearts, there should be the desire to walk and talk and live as He did.  In order to do that, we have to be vulnerable and come to God in honesty and ask Him to inhabit every area of our lives.  This isn't a one time event; it is a lifetime event.  If we cooperate with Holy Spirit, God in His mercy will begin to change us on the inside so that we become transparent enough for Jesus to shine through.  That is their goal; this should be our desire.  

Change is never easy, nor is it painless.  This change isn't easy or painless either.

This morning two passages in the Bible really pressed this home to me.

Malachi 3:1-3  Look!  I am sending my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me.  Then the Lord you are seeking will suddenly come to his Temple . . .Who will be able to endure it when he comes?  Who will be able to face him when he appears?  For he will be like a blazing fire that refines metal or like a strong soap that whitens clothes.  He will sit and judge like a refiner of silver, watching closely as the dross is burned away.  He will purify the Levites, refining them like gold or silver, so that they may once again offer acceptable sacrifices to the Lord.

Yes, this is the Old Testament, and the prophet Malachi is speaking to an Israel, specifically to Israel's leaders the Levites, who has turned away from God and forgotten His blessings so many times that God finally said, "Enough!" and sent most of them into captivity or to their death.  The Refiner He speaks of is the coming Messiah, Jesus, whom the Jews still rejected.  Messiah would come as a Refiner, one who purifies and eliminates the dross from the precious metal.

Later, the scriptures counsel the church to buy gold tried in the fire.  Revelation 3:18/Revelation 21:18    I counsel thee to buy of Me gold tried in the fire - pure gold, like unto clear glass.

I did a little reading about gold. 

• Of all metals, gold is the most malleable, Latin for a metal that can easily be hammered out after it has been heated to a certain temperature by fire .
• It is also ductile, Latin for capable of being drawn out into a thin wire, stretched to almost breaking.
• Gold can be beaten into plates of leaves so thin that it takes 300,000 of them placed one on top of another to make one inch. 
• This beaten, hammered gold is so transparent that rays of sunlight can pass right through it like sunlight shines through a windowpane - "like unto clear glass."

First comes the fire; then comes the hammer over and over again until nothing but transparency remains. 

He is the Refiner.  We are the precious gold He has purchased with His blood.  His blood destroyed our sin nature.  Our character is His to form.  He uses fire and a hammer to remove the dross and make us more like Him, more like Pappa.

My prayer is that I will be alert, willing, malleable, and ductile.  He promises that He will be with us every step of the way and that we will survive.

Refiner's fire
My heart's one desire
Is to be holy
Set apart for You, Lord
I choose to be
Holy
Set apart for You, my Master
Ready to do Your will
   ~ Brian Doerksen