With Love, from the Editress

Dear Sisters,

We each have our own fields of flowers, do we not? Those things which seem best to us, those beauties that are so real, so vibrant, so enticing to us. We also each have the town in front of us that God calls us to walk in. What is the town? It is God’s way. It seems dark, uncertain, not promising a light, easy life. It calls us to give up our choice things—the things, people, places that are most dear to our hearts.

The choice is ours alone to make. Your mother, your father, your sister, your brother, your husband, your friend cannot make the choice for you. God has given you the serious responsibility to choose for yourself. Which will it be? It depends upon our vision. These are serious thoughts, my sisters. Behind our choices lie where we will spend eternity.

Why would we want to walk in the town? Our flesh calls for a life of comfort, enjoying the styles of homes we like best, and having a garden that looks like a picture from a magazine, it calls for us to do exactly what we want when we want it. The “town” denies us all this. If we are to work for the Lord, we are promised to be twisted inside out, upside down, exhausted, and at the end of our rope many times. We can expect to be thought of little, to be mocked and accused falsely. We will have to “muck” through the darkness and fog to find a lost soul, and then listen to a bunch of noise of why that soul doesn’t think he/she needs to be saved or is already all right. Then there are others that seem to have gotten ahold of God and are coming to God’s wondrous light. Then, suddenly they find something they do not want to give up to God and so plunge back into the slums. It is heartbreaking to walk in the town.

Flowers are beautiful things. I look out my office window now as I write and can see the beauties of flowers in our gardens. Where would I rather be; walking through the streets of New York or cruising through the Portland Rose garden? I think I can figure that out easily. Flowers are bright and colorful. Few people can resist admiring a well-kept, beautiful flower bed. It does not matter that they do not last more than a few days or weeks—people still love them and spend hours of time working with them.

In looking at these two paths, it is easy to see why most people choose to walk the field. Indeed, in the poem above, we can see the struggle this soul had in giving up the field of flowers. Why did he make that choice? I am convinced that on his own, he would have never chosen the town. Then why? He saw a little bit of the vision of the Lord, the higher vision, and by God’s grace, choose the shining crown over the fading flowers of this world.

We humans can only see so far. “We see through a glass, darkly.”* (1 Corinthians 13:12) We do not see the real picture.

It would be traumatic for us to see our home burn down to the ground. Do we realize why the Lord would allow it to burn? When young, my father knew a family who had a profession of salvation but possessed very little, if anything. One day when the family was away, the Lord allowed their two-story home to burn. The family, whose hearts were set on their beautiful home, mourned over the loss. One of their daughters said to my father, “Mark, my clothes! My beautiful wardrobe is all gone!” The Lord allowed her treasure, I believe, to be taken away, in an effort that she might look toward the things that really matter. Unfortunately, this was not the result. But how would we respond? Could we look beyond and see the fingerprint of God? Many people get very bitter over these “tragedies.” They are angry at God for letting their house burn, their car be smashed, their precious things be stolen, their business fail, their child die, even though the Lord, in His mercy allows these things to happen that they might look to Him. They are bitter against the many injustices that have happened to them throughout their lives. Why? Because they have not gotten a hold of the vision of the Lord. They are looking at things through their own limited eyesight. They cannot see beyond.

“I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.”* (Ecclesiastes 9:11) Life is unfair. Dear sisters, we are going to have to rise above this world and get a vision of the Lord, or inevitably, we will become bitter against something.

Oh, that vision. The burden of it burns in my heart, as I write, my sisters. It is so important that we get the vision of the Lord—if we do not, we will do the wrong thing, for in our very limited eyesight, we cannot see past our current situations unless we have something higher to see through.

I was reading in Exodus 32 the other night before prayer meeting. I was so struck how the Israelites had such short eyesight. Moses had gone up into the mount to talk with God; the people were below, waiting. They got so tired—they couldn’t see anything happening. Perhaps Moses had been killed by wild animals, maybe he had decided to desert them. I can just imagine the stories that were started. Surely they had not been spending time with the Lord. All they could see was their discomfort; they could not see that the Canaan land was not too far off. They did not know that God was giving their leader the holy commandments, written with His very finger. They could not see it. Why? They did not have the Vision. Because they did not have it, they sinned against God; they gave up hope, and made a golden calf to worship for a god. It seemed reasonable to them. Dear sisters; it is easy to condemn what the Israelities did; we were not there. We have the privilege of looking back, over two thousand years later at their situation and the choices they made. In our own lives, our ways seem reasonable. Our ideas, the idols we hold to, they all seem so important. We reason that comfort is important and life would be harder without ______. Our shortness of eyesight will make us think that what we want is the best, and there is nothing better. But there is! Comfort is a fading flower. The crown will never lose its beauty, but grow brighter as eternity rolls on.

Many people are scared to look into God’s eyesight. They are afraid of what they might see. They do not want to leave all their world to follow Jesus. Their world is precious to them. They love the flowers and do not want to see beyond. As my grandmother says, “There is none so blind as those who won’t see.” Many people are blind to God’s vision because they want to be. There was a young man who asked an older minister to go out with him into the woods to pray and seek the Lord’s will concerning a young lady whom the young man was interested in. Out in the woods, the young man prayed first: “Lord, give me Mary, give me Mary, oh, give me Mary!” The older brother didn’t pray—he saw that the young man was not seeking the Lord’s will and His vision concerning this lady, but simply asking God to give him his heart’s desire. Many people make their own decisions without a speck of guidance from the Lord and then come asking Him to bless their decision to walk in the field of flowers. Have you asked the Lord if you could buy that expensive, extravagant dress? Or are you afraid to? Have you sought God’s eyesight concerning attending that social event which has nothing whatsoever to do with God, because you are afraid He will say “no”? You rather like the people there and don’t want to offend them… how can you win them for God if they become offended at you? Self will try to justify our own ideas and want we really want to do. God’s eyesight so far outmatches this that it is unthinkable that anything we can come up with what God has not yet seen or thought about.

What about those thoughts that you harbor in your mind about marriage? Dreaming, dreaming, dreaming… are you afraid that if you get our Lord’s vision, He will ask you to stop the dreams and give them all to Him for safekeeping? So many people see consecration to God’s entire will as a dark, dreary lane with nothing cheery about it. It is common to hear people say, “Oh, I just would be dreadfully unhappy without ______.” But that is not true. For you see, my sisters, when you search for the Heavenly vision and find it, it will change you. If you have had a hard time in serving others, it will put a joy in it. The flowers, the fading pleasures of the earth, will lose their enticement. Your heart will be in the town. Yes, the places you use to dread will become the most joyful. This vision will make you want to follow Jesus, though He may lead through the dark, wearisome town. For the things that were dark, God will shine His light and the path that seemed so hard, will be joyous when walking with Christ. It will make you be glad to leave all flowers and follow Christ wherever He leads. No, you will not be able to enjoy the comforts of this earth—Jesus certainly didn’t—but Heaven will be worth it all a thousand times over. The song writer says about the earth, “Its pleasures soon decay… Its treasures fly away.”* Heaven’s joys will never leave us, and we can, in walking with Jesus, grasp some of those joys right here on earth while walking through the town. As the song goes on:

“I have found it, Lord, in Thee,
An everlasting store
Of comfort, joy, and bliss to me:
How can I wish for more?”

The following is a song that was written by one who had this wondrous vision and the consecration that comes when submitting our own will to His and leaning upon Him for our vision and guidance:

In this world I found no rest,
Sorrow filled my aching breast,
Till I turned to One who loved me best of all;
Oh, what sacred peace I find,
Since my all I have resigned!
I have left all the world to follow Jesus.

Refrain:

I have left all the world to follow Jesus,
Never backward to its follies will I turn;
Oh, I’m on my upward way,
And it’s brighter every day;
For I’ve left all the world to follow Jesus.

Oh, what wondrous joy He gives,
While His Spirit in me lives,
For it is my meat and drink to do His will;
He the treasure I adore,
Brightens all my way before;
For I’ve left all the world to follow Jesus.

I am wholly sanctified,
Walking closely by His side,
I will ever cling to Him, my all in all;
Sweetly doth His presence fill,
While I sink into His will,
For I’ve left all the world to follow Jesus.

Earthly treasures fade away,
As I travel day by day,
Up the shining way that leads to glory bright;
Soon I’ll gain eternal rest,
With the ransomed and the blest;
For I’ve left all the world to follow Jesus.*

May God bless you, my dear sisters, and lead you on to a deeper walk with Him. May we always, by His grace, look beyond into His vision, never trusting our own limited eyesight.

With eyes upon Jesus,
Abigail

P.S. We want to say also that, as we have sought for a higher vision, the Lord has been faithful to show us His perfect will. Seeing a glimpse of things through higher eyesight has made our burden somewhat change concerning Dear Princess. Perhaps change is not the right word—we have felt our burden expand, expand into something that we—Skye and I—in our youth and immaturity, could not handle. We have seen the need—not only are young women hungry for things of the Lord, but many times the entire family. Our families feel the same. Slowly, as the Lord has directed, the idea of a new publication has come together, one that would feed the whole family, not just a portion of it. As the Lord has been blessing this thought, we have all felt it would be best that Dear Princess be merged with this family publication. We hope to publish much of the same things now published in Dear Princess, only in a condensed form, as we will have a more limited space, being only a portion of the larger magazine, Foundation Truth. We are also thinking and praying about changing the name of Dear Princess, as this has been brought to our attention as a name pertaining to the fancifulness of childhood, unfitting for a publication addressed to serious young ladies who are mostly over the age of 14 and 15. The new name the Lord has brought to mind is Maidens of Virtue and Honor. So under this new name, we intend to publish, inside Foundation Truth, a condensed version of the Dear Princess you are holding now. As Skye no longer feels that she should be coediting [see “A Letter from Skye”], I will be editing the Maidens of Virtue and Honor section. We hope these changes are not too confusing and that you understand that we welcome each and everyone of you dear sisters to write in as always.