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“ I confess that I wasn’t particularly eager to read Your Word. I finally man aged to read through the 13th chapter of Hebrews. You said, ‘/ will not in any way fail you nor give you up nor leave you helpless, nor forsake nor let you down, nor relax my hold on you.’ (Amplified) “ For a brief moment I lost my qualms. The words seemed suddenly convincing. But by the time I went into the kitchen to take a roast from the freezer, I was pretty certain You meant everyone but me. After all, who fails as often as I? Even with all my brave vows, I blunder time after time. Satan keeps hurling the word phony at me. “ But you are so good, so patient, Lord! I finally decided to go for a walk. I don’t remember how far I walked — a mile or two, maybe. But I do remember the miracle. You planned it, I’m sure. “ I was deep in whirling thoughts when I passed two women who were chatting in the front yard. Neighbors, I suppose. I have no idea what they were discussing, but suddenly a golden sentence startled me into awareness. One woman said, ‘Well, we just have to believe him, that’s all.’ “ Immediately I thought of You, dear Lord. The woman may have been re ferring to her husband, or to a son. Maybe she was talking about a doctor’s verdict, or about a relative. All that mattered, Lord, was Your penetrating message to my sullen heart. You made it so direct, so vivid, through a woman I’d never seen. I just have to believe You, that’8 all. “And that’s enough! So darkness en gulfs me and Satan appalls me; so my vivid imagination tricks me; so illness drains me; so the weather fatigues me; so there are dry days which seem devoid of any sense of reality or in spiration. “ So what? No promise of Yours can go wrong. All You have said is unalter ably true — and true for me. You will not relax your hold on me — assuredly not! I jut have to believe You, that’s all! “ Oh, Lord, thank You. This I can never forget!” —by Ruth Calkin Do not look forward to the changes of life in fear; rather look to them with full hope that, as they arise, God, whose you are, will deliver you out of them. He has kept you hitherto and He will lead you safe ly through all things; and when you cannot stand it, He will bear you in His arms. Do not look forward to what may happen tomorrow; the same everlasting Father who cares for you today will take care of you to morrow and every day. Either He will shield you from suffering, or He will give you unfailing strength to bear it. Be at peace then and put aside ail anxious thoughts and imaginations. — Francis de Sales
Coffee
by Joyce Landorf retarded. She began to glow as she re lated how God would answer me as He had answered her many times. As she related one story after an other, God seemed to pick her up and, brushing away her tired thoughts, set her feet on the mountains of grateful ness. I shall never forget how very beauti ful she looked as she poured out her heart—the heart of a mother with a very special burden, yet a very special joy. As she got out of her chair to leave, she turned to me and after apo logizing for leaving early because she had to go to the hospital, said, “ You know, I didn’t want to come tonight but my husband insisted that it would be good for me and so I finally agreed and I’m so glad I did. I needed to be here and she hesitated a moment, “I love you; I really do!” Just think! I almost missed this beautiful woman and her very wise comments on being the mother of a re tarded child because I was tired and looking at her through my own eyes (actually spelled with a capital “ I” ). I looked around at the nearly two hundred women there and knew even though I was the main speaker, I had not come all that distance for them but simply to sit, see and speak with one very tired woman and, in the end, after seeing her through our Lord’s eyes, I had been loved and she had been com forted. I had been made wise and she had become aware of God’s faithfulness. Both of us almost missed it! “DEAR LORD . . “What in the world was the matter with me yesterday, Lord? You know how miserably depressed I felt the mo ment I opened my eyes. The day was hot and sticky from the start—maybe that had something to do with my dull ness. Anyway, I was exhausted before I crawled out of the bed. “ I tried to pray — You know that, Lord! But a hundred haunting doubts beat like noisy drums. I was edgy, irri table. Plainly, I was Satan’s target, and his aim was dead center. He kept taunting, ‘And you think you’re a Christian!’ “ Funny thing: The day before was so victorious, I felt like a spiritual heroine. Everything clicked all day long, and I could feel your nearness. I literally sang with the bird! But not yesterday, Lord. Yesterday I calculated pretty much without You.
I p r o b a b l y f e l t less Christian than I had in weeks that night a few months ago but the banquet was sched uled and I arrived, tired but there. The chairman of the banquet set me down at a front table and walked off saying, over her shoulder, “ I’m not going to introduce you to anybody (there were eight ladies there) because I know you’re not shy!” “ Oh'£ brother!” I thought, “ this eve ning’s going to be a real winner.” The ladies were all engaged in their own worlds of conversation and after I told them my name, they told me theirs and simply went back to what they had been saying. I sat there for a while, wondering why I’d come. I knew I was the music and the main speaker for the banquet but I’d much rather been home cooking and eating with my family. At least they would talk even if it was just to ask me to pass the salt. The older woman on my left looked in my direction so I asked if she had a daughter . . . no, she didn’t. End of conversation. The longer I sat there, the madder I got at even being there. Then I re membered Keith Miller’s second book I’d been reading earlier that very day. Mr. Miller was talking about seeing people, not as we see them, but as Christ sees them. I looked again at the woman on my left. I wondered why I hadn’t seen the dark blue circles under her eyes before. “ Oh, Lord,” I prayed in my heart, “ help me to see her and love her as You see and love her.” It was the second look at her eyes that struck a question in my mind. Why is she so utterly exhausted? She looked as if she had been tired for years. “ Do you have any sons?” I asked. “ Yes, one,” she replied, “ but he’s in the hospital with a serious disease.” I asked her about that and she casually said the disease was complicated because her son was mentally retarded. I asked, “How old is your son?” “ Thirty-two,” she answered. Now I knew the reason for the tired eyes and heavy heart. I had seen her truly and clearly as the Lord would have seen her and I prayed for a great deal of wisdom. She had survived 32 years of emotional, physical and spirit ual fatigue and she really was very, very tired. Her eyes grew wide with a sense of aliveness when I asked her what she would tell me if I had just found out my baby boy was going to be mentally
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SEPTEMBER, 1968
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