Purpose of Foundation Truth

Dear Folks,

Greetings in the name of Jesus, our Friend and Redeemer, who gave Himself for us, the guiltless for the guilty, that we might be saved. Without Him, we can do nothing, but by Him, we can do all things He wants us to do (Philippians 4:13).

We are leaning heavily on the Lord to help us in this task. We want to be of assistance to those who desire to live for God and make heaven their home, and we want to work with the Holy Spirit in stirring and awakening all others to the great necessity of doing so.

That is the purpose of this publication. If we can, by God’s help, be of usefulness to even one soul, then all labor and effort will be more than repaid.

Now we wish to state that we love everyone, even the vast majority of you whom we have not met. How can we say this? With joy, and an inward assurance, I can declare it because “the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is given unto us.”* (Romans 5:5) There is no one, at all, whom we resent, or to whom we bear a grudge. We do not have it “in” for anyone, nor are we offended at anyone.

A brother once remarked to someone he had never met before that he had a past acquaintance with them of a sort. Then he explained that he was acquainted with God, and God was acquainted with them, and so he had a sort of indirect acquaintance with them. It is because God knows you and loves you, dear reader, that we venture to write and hope. He is able to give what is needed.

We are but fellow pilgrims on the narrow way, rejoicing in our freedom and walking in the light that has shone upon our pathway. There are things we are persuaded of (deeply) that accompany salvation (Hebrews 6:9), and there are things that we are not certain about. But our trust is in God. He has brought us safely thus far, and we trust Him to lead us safely home.

We could outline a list of what we are convicted of in our heart and a list of questions which occur to our mind. But I am not convinced that it would be profitable for you or for us to do so. Why? In God’s great plan of guidance and correction, you may not be at the same lesson junctures. It may not make sense at this time, although it may be just what you need at another time. We are asking the Lord to guide us. We are asking Him to hover over the paper as you read it and to assist you in getting hold of what is relevant and profitable, spiritually, to you at the time you read it.

If you feel it is necessary for you to know exactly where we stand on a particular principle, please contact us. Write us or call. But, if you read the paper over an extended period of time, we feel certain you will know, and we trust and hope that it will be of benefit to you.

To properly understand the Bible, it is necessary to be under the same Holy Spirit that inspired it to be written. With Brother John, we must be “in the Spirit”* (Revelations 1:10) to see and know and understand. Only the Lord can enlighten the eyes of our understanding (Ephesians 1:18), and give skill and understanding (Daniel 9:22; 1:17). The Lord will teach us to rightly divide the Word of Truth, producing a workman that needeth not to be ashamed (2 Timothy 2:15).

Having been taught in this way by this wonderful Teacher for some time, we declare with great joy that we are “not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth.”* (Romans 1:16) We would happily shout to all the glorious news: IT WORKS! It does just exactly as promised. Not a single part has failed in any way. Hallelujah! It is gloriously true and accurate. In spite of all who have failed to find, the treasure is yet in the field, and there are those who have paid the full price to buy the same, and are rejoicing in full possession (Matthew 13:44).

If you have been hindered—if you are disillusioned—if you are hurt—bewildered—confused—desperate—in great need—we would declare to you the results of our own personal experience with God and His way: IT WORKS! And we would say to you, “Lift up your head. Look and live. It was designed by God Himself to work in your case.”

“For me the promise sure was made,
And sealed on Calvary.”*

Finally, we ask an interest in your prayers. Ye who love the Lord, would you help hold up our hands? (Exodus 17:8-13).

A Personal Experience

I was born again with a heavenly birth on August 10, 1970, just before I turned thirteen years old. The Lord’s love was very real to me, and I thought of nothing but happily serving Him the rest of my days. I found very soon that there was a real enemy of my soul still at work, and I soon succumbed to temptation and did things I knew were wrong. The rest of my teen years and young adulthood is a story of repenting, new starts, and failures. I was taught that this was typical, and had no better experience than personal conscientiousness could bring me. But the Lord knew my heart, and had better plans for me. In my early thirties the Lord began to bring me to those “better plans.” The first area the Lord brought to light for me was the uselessness of discouragement after I failed. It was time to immediately repent, and seek the Lord again, to minimize the damage and get back to a place of a clear conscience before Him. I began to do somewhat better in fighting against some of my besetting sins.

In early 1991, I encountered what was a new teaching to me. God both requires and provides deliverance from sin. Jesus came to “save his people from their sins.”* (Matthew 1:21) The life of a Christian is a life of reigning in this life. Now being exposed to truth, and even recognizing something as truth, is not the same as appropriating it in our lives. There was a memorable day in my life when the Lord opened this to my own heart in a peculiar way. A brother was speaking to me of the victory the Lord had for me by way of a parable, and I was only half listening. I suddenly “tuned in” as he was finishing the story: “As the ship crossed the ocean, at each mealtime he would go to his cabin and eat some more of his carefully hoarded cheese and crackers. Just as the voyage was ending, he found out that his ticket included the price of the fine meals the ship served three times a day, and he could have been eating well during the whole trip!”

The story hadn’t particularly captivated me, but the thought of what was included in the ticket price kept growing with me. When I was tempted to sin, I would call on the Lord for the provisions that had been already purchased for me, and I would get the victory! I began to lay hold of the many promises in scripture to sustain me in time of temptation, and Jesus indeed brought me into newness of life. Now temptation still assailed me, but I did not yield! Oh, the blessedness of a clear conscience!

I then began to discover a natural bent to evil dwelling within me, that made it difficult to keep the victory, and made it difficult to keep a whole-heartedness in my service to God. It wasn’t a particular act that I needed to repent of, and my conscience was still clear, yet it caused trouble for me, and my soul was not at rest. I was recognizing the fallen nature that I had inherited from Adam. The teaching of an inward purging, a second work of grace, was new to me, and I was naturally a moderate, slow-acting person in disposition. It took several years to come to a place of consecration to obtain that rest. “There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God…. Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest.”* (Hebrews 4:9,11) And again, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.”* (Romans 12:1) But again there was a memorable day. I had gone out to our car, and was praying for God to purge and sanctify me, when He brought before me some things to yield utterly into His hands. I had sometime earlier consecrated my children into His hands, after much agony of spirit. Now the Lord brought to mind several things I had been fearful to face, and I consecrated to go through those things if He wanted me to. One final matter He brought before me, and I consecrated on a certain condition (I couldn’t feel that it would be right to do what He was asking unless He changed a condition that existed). At this point I felt blessed in writing down on a piece of paper the following words:

I, Richard Joel Erickson, being of sound mind and body, do hereby yield myself wholly and forever to the Lord, that I might be His completely and forever. Signed this seventh day of September, 1995.

I bear witness that the Lord received that consecration, and let me know it was accepted and the work done, at that moment. I felt a restfulness in my soul, a single-mindedness, a witness that the fallen nature had been purged out.

Since that time I have had more and harder trials than ever before in my life. Things I “gave permission” to the Lord to do, so to speak, have happened and the Lord has brought good to me through them. I have been smaller in my own eyes than ever before, and the Lord larger. I find that my own judgment and feelings still very much exist, and many times I find that I must seek the Lord for a laying aside of my own thoughts in order to discern His will, and then I say, “Abba, Father,” and go in His grace.

If you were to meet me, you would find nothing outstanding, and a number of character weaknesses, and little that is particularly appealing in earthly terms. But the hidden life of Christ is at work in me, and there is a clearness between myself and the Lord that counts more to me than anything else. “And herein do I exercise myself, to have always a conscience void of offense toward God, and toward men.”* (Acts 24:16)

Christian Independence

There is an independence of man that is wrong, and there is an independence that is most Christlike.

Personal, Utter Dependence on God

Salvation is an intensely personal experience between the individual soul and God. When a soul surrenders to God and falls on the stone and is broken (Matthew 21:44), then a relationship of dependence on Christ has begun. It is a voluntary dependence, for the Lord forces no one to serve Him. How greatly our Lord values voluntary love! He stands at the door of the heart and knocks for entrance. Laying aside His great sovereignty and indisputable rights to us in deference to the right of choice with which He endued us, He stands at the door and knocks for admittance. He woos the immortal soul. He reasons with us. He presents to each eternity-bound heart the Divine case for unconditional surrender to Him.

When we yield to God and lay down our ways, confess our need of Him, acknowledge the fiasco we have made of our life, and repent of our rebellion, then He changes us from a child of the devil to a child of God. This change is so revolutionary and profound that it is characterized in the Bible as being born again—a complete starting over—a new life within which is characterized by all things becoming new. We are transformed by grace, the unmerited favor of God freely offered to us on the merits of the atonement of His Son. Thus God does in us what we could never do. For it is impossible to please God by our own efforts alone.

This experience is the beginning of a life of dependence on God. For, just as it is impossible to obtain a saved relationship with God by our own efforts, it is just as impossible to keep saved without constant help from the Lord. How dependent, how utterly dependent we are! “Without me ye can do nothing.”* (John 15:5) That is, nothing worthwhile and acceptable to Him who sees all and knows all. But through Him “I can do all things.” He is our strength and help. He is the Helper of the helpless. “Unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding great joy.”* (Jude 24)

Salvation is designed for human beings. Divine love and divine wisdom devised a way that would lift man up above the beggarly elements of this world. That would restore man to primitive purity, that would undo and destroy the works of the devil. Hallelujah! “He is able also to save to the uttermost.”* (Hebrews 7:25) No case is too hard for Him. Though the parents have sinned, and the grandparents have sinned; though the seeker be conditioned and steeped in sin and degradation, God is able to save and keep. God engineered it to work in the most extreme of cases, and He Himself encourages all to come to Him. He is “not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.”* (2 Peter 3:9)

But these happy results are not experienced without experiencing the spirit of dependency on God. In Him, we must live, and move, and have our being, spiritually speaking. “And the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.”* (Galatians 2:20)

From the time of our surrender and divinely-wrought change of heart, the Spirit of God deals with each believer to lead them to a total surrender. The need for this is realized as we began to lean on the Lord to help us live up to our light and understanding, and especially to help us when we realize more of what pleases God and what does not. The Spirit of God will lead us to an absolute surrender, a condition of the heart wherein the inner desire of the soul is, “Abba, Father,” always. Here is our great safety—total surrender—total dependence on God. Here is where we can trust in the Lord with all our heart—and lean not to our own understanding.

How blessed it is to be all the Lord’s. No reserve, no holdback. To know is to do. Launched out in God. Belonging to Him absolutely in a way of which the unsanctified are completely unaware. How much of our safety, our strength in Him, is involved in this precious Canaan, our inheritance, willed to us by our Older Brother. “Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus.”* (Hebrews 10:19)

God Above Everything

This relationship between ourselves must take priority over every other relationship. “He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.”* (Matthew 10:37) He must be first. He must be Lord of all within us or He will not be Lord at all within us. To have the spirit of complete dependence on Christ is to have the spirit of complete independence of all men. It is to hear the voice of the Spirit of God telling us, “This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left,”* (Isaiah 30:21) and it is to obey that Voice always at any cost. It is absolute trueness to God.

To follow any conflicting voice, no matter how precious or dear, is to be untrue to this first and foremost loyalty. It is to put something ahead of God—to position an idol between ourselves and He whom we are to love with all our heart, our mind, our strength. Many have failed the Lord at this point, and have not kept that independence of man which is so necessary to a walk with God.

Independent Examples

That independence of every other voice but that of the Father is so plainly manifested in the life of our Example. When Peter would dissuade Him from the path that God had shown to Him, our Lord replied, “Get thee behind me, Satan [Adversary]: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but the things that be of men.”* (Mark 8:33) He went on to fulfill the will of God for Him, even our salvation.

The same principle can be found all throughout the New Testament. When Paul was criticized by those contending for the circumcision and the keeping of the Mosaic Law, he gave no place to the devil, and spoke of the matter to the saints at Galatia in these terms, “Because of false brethren unawares brought in, who came in privily to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage: to whom we gave place by subjection, no, not for an hour; that the truth of the gospel might continue with you. But of these who seemed to be somewhat, (whatsoever they were, it maketh no matter to me: God accepteth no man’s person:) for they who seemed to be somewhat in conference added nothing to me.”* (Galatians 2:46) He did not negotiate with them, nor did he strive with them. He did not get hurt by them, nor did he politically maneuver around them. He simply “gave place by subjection, no, not for an hour.” He was absolutely dependent on God and independent of every other voice and influence.

Brother John teaches us that this principle is true of all of God’s saints. “But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him.”* (1 John 2:27) “Ye need not that any man teach you.” God can save a person and get him or her to heaven without the necessity of the involvement of anyone else on the face of the earth. Please note, I say that He can; I do not say that He chooses to do so. But with Brother John, all gospel workers should confess that the inward anointing is all-sufficient, if folks will listen to the still, small Voice.

How little room there is in reality for feelings of self-importance! We are only unprofitable servants who have only done that which we are commanded to do. Yet, it has pleased the Lord to put people in the process, for it has pleased the Lord to save them that believe by the foolishness of preaching (1 Corinthians 1:21).

An Independence That Is Wrong

Here is the truth of the second of these two precious principles. Just as there is an independence of man that is most Christlike, there is also an independence of man that is wrong. What is the distinguishing line? How can the honest soul know the difference? When is it wrong to be independent of man?

“One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.”* (Ephesians 4:6) God’s voice is the same wherever He is. If He chooses to speak through lips of clay or through the life or voice of a little child, then it is still God that speaks. God abides in the heart of each of His children, but He has not limited Himself to that place. He may even cause truth to be stated by those who love Him not. How much it means to be pure in heart, thereby to see God (and hear Him) wherever He chooses to manifest Himself! “Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.”* (Matthew 5:8) How necessary for holy living!

Jesus says, “My sheep hear my voice… and they follow me.”* (John 10:27) You are to hear more than the preacher’s voice, but there are those who are hearing no more. You are to listen for the voice of Jesus in the voice of the preacher, and if you can not hear it, do not follow.

[Charles E. Orr; The Rule of a Saintly Life]

We would add, that if you do hear the voice of God speaking through the preacher, do not fail to follow.

The child of God can not be independent of the voice of God wherever He chooses to manifest Himself. If I limit God in my mind, reasoning that He will only work in a certain way, then I will miss what He has to say to me through others. This is the independence of man that is wrong. It is vital to be able to distinguish the voice of God from all other voices to know which independence of man is right and most Christlike, and which is wrong and an actual deafness to God.

Appropriate Independence

The humble equality of brethren in the New Testament church is maintained by this distinguishing capability. For, if God can speak through anyone at anytime, there is no place for big I’s and little you’s. The admonition of Brother Peter to the saints makes perfect sense. “Likewise, ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder. Yea, all of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility: for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble. Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time.”* (1 Peter 5:56) This scripture text is very destructive to the idea of a hierarchy within the body of believers, but it harmonizes wonderfully with the line of truth we are discussing in this article. What a beautiful picture! God within each one, and each submitting to God in each other! “Yea, all of you be subject one to another.”

In this Bible picture of the church of God, all eyes are focused on God. They are listening for the voice of God in each other. There is a disregard of human talent and skill, a recognition that these things do not accomplish the work of God. The emphasis, the focus, is on God speaking, working, using. How beautiful! What a perfect plan! Then is God all in all. There is an independence of man that is wrong, and there is an independence of man that is most Christlike. Amen.

The Narrow and Intensely Steep Way

Forgiveness: the Way to the High Places

There are reasons why people do not make it to the high places. It costs something. In fact, it costs a lot. As Brother C. E. Orr writes:

You need to pray more, meditate more, lift up your soul to God more, have more reverence and holy awe upon your soul, live more in godly fear, have more of the anointing of the Holy Spirit upon you, and more peace and power and glory in your soul. You can have it. It will cost you something, but you can have it if you will.

[Charles E. Orr; Helps to Holy Living, “Part I”]

To live in this way is to have the feet of the hind, and God is calling to all His little children to undertake the quest from the spiritual lowlands to the high places.

In the book Hinds’ Feet in High Places, Much-Afraid set her heart upon traveling to the Shepherd’s high places wherein He had promised her that her lame feet would be changed into hinds’ feet. “The Lord God is my strength, and He will make my feet like hinds’ feet, and He will make me to walk upon mine high places.”* (Habakkuk 3:19) Her pilgrimage had not gone as she thought it would go. The road to the high places turned away from the mountains and took her into things she would not have chosen. After many experiences, all valuable if taken rightly and all appointed of the Shepherd, she was elated when the way turned toward the heights, and she anticipated soon being in the mountains, just as people imagine what it is like to be spiritual and grow excited at the prospect. If you wish to read of this in the book, it begins in the ninth chapter and continues through the tenth.

At first, the way was without obstacle, and the mountains loomed higher and higher. And then Much-Afraid received a dreadful shock. For the path dead-ended at “the foot of an impassable precipice.”

This is not just a story; it is an accurate depiction of the nature of the difficulties of those who really live for God. The inner adjustment of the attitude of Much-Afraid was and is the vital thing. For it is not so much what happens to us in life that matters; it is how we take it. What appears to be impossible, is possible with God. He is waiting on us. The entire account of her stunned perplexity, her baffled amazement, her disappointed expectation is classic. Many want to be more spiritual, but they want to be more spiritual for God in their way. God has His own plans for us—and they are vastly superior to our greatest imaginings. His way up is frequently a way down. He has in mind to present us with His ways, step by step, and leave it to us whether we will follow all the way or draw back.

To consecrate to go all the way with the Lord is to consecrate to walk with Sorrow and Suffering, both before the transformation and afterwards. It is to find a Way—the one and only way that God has chosen for us—through all the happenings of life.

When God allows someone to really injure you, and you are still reeling from the injustice and lack of love manifested, then this allegorical representation at the foot of the precipice of injury will take on a depth of meaning previously unknown. I learned about it in my youth. In a naive, trusting manner, I got myself into a position before others which left me wide open to scathing criticism, not totally undeserved, but certainly not to the extent that it was dished out. And there I was (right where God intended for me to be), with the precipice filling the sky and the experience of damage overshadowing my entire life, trying to find the way that God had for me through all of it. As a poet put it many years before,

My soul had longed for more of God,
More glory in the cross;
But never dreamed that it must come
Through such a bitter loss.

[Daniel S. Warner, quoted in Birth of a Reformation, by Andrew L. Byers]

With your head at an impossible angle, your neck aching, and your eyes straining, you stare up… up… at what it means to forgive from the heart as a Bible Christian must do—and it just flat looks impossible. I thought the injustice of it all would drive me mad. The prejudices of others tower up into the very clouds and beyond, and there seems no hope of ever being even understood, to say nothing of being accepted.

What did Jesus do? For He came this way Himself in the days of His flesh. Yes! The glory of His passing lingers yet, and those who are given the feet of the spiritual hind and the hart follow in His steps. For there is a way up. “God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.”* (1 Corinthians 10:13)

The hart, which was leading the way, was following what appeared to be a narrow and intensely steep track which went zig-zagging across the face of the cliff.

[Hannah Hurnard; Hinds’ Feet on High Places (Copyright 1975 by Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.)]

There was a path which led onwards; there was a way of escape from despair and discouragement without turning back.

Except the Lord help us in our need, we are not even able to trace the narrow path of trueness to God in the injuries we receive, but by His assistance, we can both learn and follow. In the allegorical representation of these things in the book, Much-Afraid could scarcely win the consent of her heart to ask for the help she needed, and it really appeared for a short time as if this was the end of her quest for a deeper, higher life. After stewing about, attempting to deal with her problems on her own by not taking God’s way, she finally called for help. And here a profound truth appears. God already knows how we will react in any of life’s circumstances. He carefully measures out the trials of His children for our good. He intends that our weaknesses be strengthened and our strengths perfected.

“I don’t think—I want—hinds’ feet, if it means I have to go on a path like that,” she said slowly and painfully.

The Shepherd was a very surprising person. Instead of looking either disappointed or disapproving, he actually laughed again. “Oh, yes, you do,” he said cheerfully. “I know you better than you know yourself, Much-Afraid. You want it very much indeed, and I promised you these hinds’ feet.”

“But I never dreamed you would do anything like this! Lead me to an impassable precipice up which nothing can go but deer and goats, when I’m no more like a deer or a goat than is a jellyfish. It’s too—it’s too—” She fumbled for words, and then burst out laughing. “Why, it’s too preposterously absurd! It’s crazy! Whatever will you do next?”

The Shepherd laughed, too. “I love doing preposterous things,” he replied. “Why, I don’t know anything more exhilarating and delightful than turning weakness into strength, and fear into faith, and that which has been marred into perfection. If there is one thing more than another which I should enjoy doing at this moment, it is turning a jellyfish into a mountain goat. That is my special work,” he added with the light of a great joy in his face.

[; Hinds’ Feet on High Places]

What a beautiful picture of a soul learning to trust! Out of weakness being made strong and brought on the way to be made stronger yet.

But Thou art making me, I thank Thee, Sire.
What Thou hast done and doest Thou know’st well,
And I will help Thee: gently in Thy fire
I will lie burning; on Thy potter’s-wheel
I will whirl patient, though my brain should reel;
Thy grace shall be enough the grief to quell,
And growing strength perfect through weakness dire.

[George MacDonald; The Diary of an Old Soul, “October”]

All this is precious and exceedingly valuable. All of it is the necessary prerequisite to actually beginning to climb. But now we want to focus on what it means to forgive—forgive freely and from the heart—the necessary inner steps that must be taken to climb the precipice and come out on top.

All of us possess a certain dignity and standing with others which varies to a certain extent, but is more or less fixed by our place in life, our conditioning, our culture, our kin. All have an inner sense of justice/injustice. With some of us, it is somewhat muted, while with others, it is hair-trigger. With some, stones could be thrown at them for no apparent reason, and they still would not be much upset; but with others, the slightest thing sets off an avalanche of outrage. When any of us encounter the precipice of injury, the reaction is almost always proportionate to how highly we think of ourselves. We climb as we humble ourselves. The more lowly-minded we are, the better we ascend. The more that we think of ourselves, the harder it is to even see the way of escape, much less to ascend it. It may appear contradictory, but Jesus is calling each of us to greater heights of lowliness and meekness.

To become convicted of our smallness and littleness, yet stay true to God, and not enter into bondage to man, is vastly more than adopting a serious inferiority complex. We catch a hint of it in Philippians, “For we are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.”* (Philippians 3:3) It is not just to have no confidence in my flesh, but in the flesh of everyone overall, including me. It is to realize that the glory of man is as the grass. It is to catch a glimpse of how incapable we are of getting along as we need to without the intervention of the Almighty. It speaks with profound authority in this text, “O Lord, I know that the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps.”* (Jeremiah 10:23) It is to realize how greatly all humanity is in need of the grace of God, and particularly all humanity as it applies to me.

To be willing to be stripped of our heritage of dignity and standing among our peers, to consecrate to be misunderstood and misrepresented, to continue to labor for the good of others at the Lord’s direction through it all; these are the steps of our Master. For He, long ago, in the days of His flesh, labored up this faint trace of a path up the sheer sides of the precipice of injury. “He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.”* (Isaiah 53:3-4) He, too, put no confidence in His flesh. “And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself.”* (Philippians 2:8) Every child of God, in learning to forgive, follows this same path. It is an acceptance of the way of Jesus for ourselves, an embracing of the cross—of the path of the humbly-minded.

One slip off this path can shatter your whole life. For to commit to follow the way of the Lord is to commit to not fit in all other paths. “Normal” human life, in the sense that pride, dignity, and peer standing are the “normal” way of life for most, becomes more and more unsuitable to a soul who has launched out to follow Jesus in the adoption with all his heart. If you give up after truly following the Lord in this way, you will find that you are not very suited any more for just a shallow religious professor or good-moral-worldly life. Let me put it this way: if you have ever been helped by the Lord to fully and freely forgive another from the heart, then you know something about victory on this line that goes far beyond words. If you turn away from following God, and you react to an injury from another as the world does, it will do you greater damage than if you did not have the inner knowledge you possess. Your inner understanding makes you more accountable, and you will be handicapped and restrained in your carnality. If you deliberately override this understanding, it will make you harder and prouder than would have otherwise been the case. “For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning. For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them.”* (2 Peter 2:20-21)

Someone has said that to understand all is to forgive all. There is some truth to this. There are reasons why people do as they do, and why they did the way they did in the injury you received. Frequently, these reasons have deep roots and go beyond personal malice. The people that crucified Jesus did not understood at all the extent to which they were sinning. And He grasped this in His forgiveness of them. “Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.”* (Luke 23:34) His comprehension of the extent of their ignorance assisted in maintaining a forgiving attitude toward them.

A Christian must possess the spirit of forgiveness and forbearance toward all at all times (Colossians 3:13). “Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.”* (Ephesians 4:31-32) A follower of the Lord Jesus Christ should be one of the most tenderhearted and kindest of men, easy to be entreated, and gentle (James 3:17). He has been forgiven through the forbearance of God with him (Romans 3:25), and he bears about this disposition to forgive others their trespasses against him.

Some folks are willing to extend a grudging pardon to those who grovel for mercy, but such is far short of Christ-like forgiveness. This attitude betrays a lack of understanding in the inner man of the character of God. For He delights in mercy and is ready to forgive (Psalms 86:5). Forgiveness is in His heart, and He only waits for the petition of a contrite heart to complete the act of pardon.

A little girl once expressed the feeling to me, with a child’s outspoken candor. She had asked whether the Lord Jesus always forgave us for our sins as soon as we asked Him, and I had said, “Yes, of course He does.”

“Just as soon?” she repeated, doubtingly.

“Yes,” I replied, “the very minute we ask, He forgives us.”

“Well,” she said deliberately, “I cannot believe that. I should think He would make us feel sorry for two or three days first. And then I should think He would make us ask Him a great many times, and in a very pretty way too, not just in common talk. And I believe that is the way He does, and you need not try to make me think He forgives me right at once, no matter what the Bible says.”

She only said what most Christians think, and, what is worse, what most Christians act on.

[Hannah W. Smith; The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life, “Failures”]

God is easy to be entreated for forgiveness because He possesses the spirit of forgiveness. This spirit of forgiveness manifests itself in the preparations that He has made to forgive and restore each fallen member of the human race. It is also seen in His forbearance and in how His Spirit strives with each member of the human race. A child of God is easy to be entreated because he/she has received this spirit of forgiveness from God, and he, as his heavenly Father, is predisposed to forgive. He carries within himself the spirit of forgiveness, forgiving the offender’s trespass before it is committed.

Sometimes this disposition to forgive is tried greatly. Sometimes the enemy comes in like a flood and presents a resentment and an attitude of feeling sorry for one’s self, which would replace the spirit of forgiveness if the temptation is accepted. There may be a struggle here, and it may be necessary to get more grace to get smaller in our own estimation to be able to have victory on this point, but that overcoming is ours for the taking by the help of Him who loves us.

The Mountain of Injury can be surmounted by the grace of God. Indeed, it is the only way to the high places. No one ever got deeper in the Lord without learning how to forgive all.

A Testimony of Deliverance

“I used to wear seductive clothing,” the wife said. She was sitting on the sofa, beside her husband, and, to look at her, you would never have suspected it. She was well covered, very plain and humble. You would never have suspected that she used to take drugs, either, or that he had as well. He also told me that he had been addicted to rock music, or more accurately, to the spirit of rebellion in the music. There were four children in their family, from a teenage young man to a little girl of preschool age, with an adolescent girl and a pre-teen girl in between. There was nothing obvious from the parent’s sinful background that manifested itself in the offspring, either.

But the story that they told my wife and I was horrible. It was a story that is all too common, and it would only be another one of millions, except for one thing. The noteworthy thing is the deliverance that they found. How uncommon that is!

“My parents were Old Colony Mennonite,” she said.

“What did you think of the Bible?” I asked; “of people who lived right?”

“It was all right for them,” she replied, “but it was not for me, I thought.” She paused a moment. “It wasn’t until our first child was born that I began to seriously think about God.”

I was silent except for nodding my head. But my mind was immediately riveted upon 1 Timothy 2:15: “Notwithstanding, she shall be saved in childbearing.” It seemed that my thoughts were opened to a greater comprehension of how God has arranged life—the perpetual waves of birth, growth, and death. Why He made it so that we are so associated with the beginnings—the babies, the retracing of the same paths of learning. How He has designed it to talk to our hearts, and it does. Here too, day unto day uttereth speech, and night, knowledge. What more solemn reminder could there be of eternal things than to be so intimately involved with the beginnings of another human life? How good God is to us! How much He loves us and wants us to be saved! For God is “not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.”* (2 Peter 3:9)

That is exactly what happened in Sister Kathy’s case. It has been true of many others as well. Such is the goodness of God.

A little later in the conversation, Isaac told me the same. “I was so selfish,” he confessed, “but when the children came….”

Did they get saved then? No, but it stirred their hearts to serious thinking. There is much down here that is calculated to remove thoughts of God and eternity from the mind, but God, in mercy, has also placed things that are designed to remind and to entreat. They plead with the eternity-bound soul, “Be ye reconciled to God.”

It seemed a little strange to accept that the man who told me these things was the same man who confessed to locking his wife and children out of the house when they came back from church services once. He didn’t appear to be that kind of man, and he wasn’t—any longer. He had been, but he was different now.

His rebellion against everything in his teens was expressed through rock music. He reveled in shocking others, in acts of defiance. “At first,” he said, “I didn’t pay any attention to the lyrics. It was just the music.” But eventually that changed. And, when he began to notice what was said, the shocker began to be shocked. “I had never really thought about it,” he stated. “At one concert, I realized that the lead singer was really Satan’s preacher, and the words were what he was preaching to us.” This scared him—as well it might. The songs meant what they said, and what they said was horrible.

He repented as best he knew, and forsook drugs and rock music. His wife had gotten saved before him, and the change in her was just as profound. They became involved with a very strict group of professed Christians. These folks taught a deeper life, and Isaac and Kathy were drawn to that. The concept of a deeper life proved out to be an oppressive yoke and bondage in that place. They were not happy. He gave up and gave place to bitterness. She prayed that they would move to another congregation, and the Lord heard her prayer.

So he left his job where he had been a union man for about eighteen and one-half years, sold his home, and moved with his wife and family across the continent to an area where they had no relations or family connections. Her brother and his family moved to the same area at the same time. And there Isaac could not find a job.

“I had a certain way of thinking about what I did for a living,” he related to me. “It was a labor union way of thinking.” He paused. “I wanted to start at the top,” he continued, “and eventually, I had to start at the bottom.” His wife and children went to services in the new locality, but he did not. “I was full of bitterness,” he stated. It was at this time that he locked his family out. They went over to her brother’s, and they stayed there for about the next three months.

“I had taken them for granted,” he said. “It seemed that God was saying to me, ‘I’ll give you back your family if you will live for me.’ I didn’t want any part of that!” Isaac said he refused to be blackmailed by God. “I didn’t want to follow anyone.”

“Master of your fate?” I questioned. “Captain of your soul?”

He nodded. He had fought for three months. “I won’t follow.” No family, no job. Listening to rock music again. Pride. Unwillingness to bow. “My choice,” he said, “God and my family, God and work, or no God and no family, no work.” He gave a bittersweet grimace. “I called God a blackmailer,” he said; “said I wouldn’t yield. My choice.”

“Like Balaam between the stone walls and the donkey that wouldn’t go,” I said. He nodded.

It was obvious what had happened. He gave up. God won. How good for him that God had won!

“When I gave up,” he continued, “I asked the Lord to forgive me….” He stopped a minute. “And He did,” he went on, “but I felt I needed to pray with a minister before I was really saved.” He stopped again. “I think it was a holdover in my thinking from the folks I had been with,” he said. “I thought I had to have the approval of others.”

“Salvation is a transaction between the soul and God,” I said. He nodded. I thought of a quote from the book Salvation, Present, Perfect, Now or Never: “Every man on earth can come directly to the Author of salvation through Jesus Christ, and be saved, independent of all men or angels.”

“Anyway, I went the next day to services at the chapel and stayed to pray with the minister afterwards. I told him I wanted to get saved, and he said, ‘Okay, let’s pray.’ I asked the Lord to forgive me again, and—” Here he paused; a look of wonder came over his face. “The Lord spoke to me and said, ‘I forgave you yesterday. Why are you asking me again?’ ” He was already saved.

From Your Heart Forgive

Forgive: to cease to feel resentment against (an offender); to give up resentment of or claim to requital

Pardon: to free from penalty

Then came Peter to him, and said, “Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times?”* (Matthew 18:21) No doubt, Peter considered this to be generous—seven times!

“Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven.”* (Matthew 18:22) Jesus gives us a hint of the generosity of forgiveness which heaven has available for us, hence the requirement to forgive someone four hundred ninety times for the same offense. Imagine the effect on this disciple, as yet unfilled with the Holy Ghost, upon learning how prodigal an expenditure of full and free forgiveness a child of God can extend and must extend in forgiving a trespass!

“Therefore is the kingdom of heaven likened unto a certain king, which would take account of his servants. And when he had begun to reckon, one was brought unto him, which owed him ten thousand talents.”* (Matthew 18:23-24) This was a stupendous sum. Adam Clarke tells us that it probably refers to the gold talent, rather than the silver, and that the amount is 67,500,000 sterling. He goes on to add that this was equal to the annual revenue of the British empire in about 1830 ad. Think of this one man, a servant, so indebted. His position was hopeless.

“But forasmuch as he had not to pay, his lord commanded him to be sold, and his wife, and children, and all that he had, and payment to be made. The servant therefore fell down, and worshipped him, saying, Lord, have patience with me, and I will pay thee all. Then the lord of that servant was moved with compassion, and loosed him, and forgave him the debt.”* (Matthew 18:25-27) Here we see the wonderful forgiveness that was given and the elements behind it. He was moved with compassion. He loosed him. He forgave him. What an effect should be expected on the one thus forgiven! Surely, as Hezekiah, he should go softly before the One who forgave him for the rest of his years.

“But the same servant went out, and found one of his fellowservants, which owed him an hundred pence: and he laid hands on him, and took him by the throat, saying, Pay me that thou owest.”* (Matthew 18:28) A hundred pence, a hundred denarii. Not a trifle when a man could labor all day for a penny, but, Oh! Compared to what he had been forgiven, how small it was!

“And his fellowservant fell down at his feet, and besought him, saying, Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all.”* (Matthew 18:29) It was the same that he himself had said. What it not his turn to be moved with compassion, to loose, to forgive?

“And he would not: but went and cast him into prison, till he should pay the debt. So when his fellowservants saw what was done, they were very sorry, and came and told unto their lord all that was done. Then his lord, after that he had called him, said unto him, O thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt, because thou desiredst me: Shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellowservant, even as I had pity on thee?”* (Matthew 18:30-33) The point is very plain. The forgiven of God should be (and must be) the most forgiving people on earth.

“And his lord was wroth, and delivered him to the tormentors, till he should pay all that was due unto him. So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses.”* (Matt. 18:34-35) If we forgive not men their trespasses, our heavenly Father will not forgive us. Or, if He has already forgiven us, and we accept an unforgiving spirit toward our fellow man, then He will rescind our forgiveness, just as He did with this man in the story that Jesus related.

Forgive: to cease to feel resentment against (an offender); to give up resentment of or claim to requital

A minister was driving along the street and stopped at a traffic light. While he was waiting for the light to change, a woman got in her car and whizzed back into the street down her driveway. She did not look where she was going, and she rammed into the side of the minister’s car. This was unpleasant enough, but it got worse. She jumped out of her car and began to berate the minister, blaming him for the accident. After he went home with his damaged car, her husband called him and began to blame him for the accident as well. This went on for a certain length of time, some days, and the minister testified that he began to chafe under the trial. He said he went to prayer in that chafing condition, and he began to pray that God would rebuke the devil and make that woman and man began to behave themselves. As he began to speak in this way, he said that God stopped him from finishing what he was going to say. Just stopped him! “Hush,” God told him (he related). “People aren’t supposed to treat you right all the time, anyway!” He was rather stunned by this, and he just knelt there, thinking. “People aren’t supposed to treat me right all the time?” He accepted that premise. People aren’t supposed to treat me right all the time. He began to see that God had something for him in this trial. He needed to forgive the woman and the man. He began to pray for grace to be a saint and do right, and thus he began to work the trial, instead of the trial working him.

It is not hard to forgive people if you aren’t really hurt. If they really didn’t bother you, it doesn’t amount to much, and it is easy to say, “Oh, I forgive you.” But if you have seriously been misunderstood or misrepresented, or if you have been the object of real malice or envy, it can put you on your knees, praying for grace to fully and completely forgive. One brother said that he had experienced a need to pray and fast for several days to be sure that he really forgave folks.

There is forgiveness with God. Not only His forgiveness to us of things which stood between us and Him, but there is grace to forgive other men their trespasses against us. There will always be offenses, even when folks mean no offense, for we are simply different and do not understand each other perfectly. Folks will steps on your toes, and you will step on the toes of others, even if you would never purposely do so for anything. How much it means to carry a forgiving attitude! A forbearing attitude! A clear consciousness of how much we have been forgiven will help us to be forgiving. Lord, fill us with meekness! Help us to be as generous and tenderhearted in our forgiving of others as You have been to us.

“And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven us.”* (Ephesians 4:32)

“Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye.”* (Colossians 3:13)

Book Reviews

---

The Seven Laws of Teaching

(revised edition), by John Milton Gregory, published by Baker Books, Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Mr. Gregory’s book, originally written in 1884 and revised in 1917, is a classic. Like all good “coaches,” he focuses on the fundamentals, or basics. From the point of view of the teacher’s part, the seven laws can be briefly stated as the following rules:

1. The Law of the Teacher: Know thoroughly and familiarly the lesson you wish to teach.
2. The Law of the Learner: Gain and keep the attention and interest of the pupils upon the lesson.
3. The Law of the Language: Use words understood in the same way by the pupils and yourself.
4. The Law of the Lesson: Begin with what is already well known to the pupil upon the subject and with what he has himself experienced—and proceed to the new material by single, easy, and natural steps.
5. The Law of the Teaching Process: Stimulate the pupil’s own mind to action. Place him in the attitude of a discoverer.
6. The Law of the Learning Process: Require the pupil to reproduce in thought the lesson he is learning.
7. The Law of Review and Application: Review, review, review, reproducing the old, deepening its impression, correcting any false views, and completing the true.

They look basic and simple, but anyone who has put their hand to the task of teaching will recognize that problems arise in every one of these laws in practical application, and Mr. Gregory’s book is a wealth of sound counsel in these areas. You can read it through, or use it as a reference, as the book consists of eight chapters, with an introduction to the laws and then a chapter devoted to each. I found a greater sense of appreciation for the Lord’s skill as my teacher after reading this book.

“I Write Unto You, Young Men”

Dear Young Men,

In Psalms we find written: “For ever, O Lord, thy word is settled in heaven. Thy faithfulness is unto all generations: thou hast established the earth, and it abideth. They continue this day according to thine ordinances: for all are thy servants.”* (Psalm 119:89-91)

There is much to communicate stability and reliability here: “For ever,” “settled,” “faithfulness,” “established,” “abideth,” “continue.” “For ever” is not something the finite mind really grasps. Perhaps it would be helpful to think in these terms: At any time the need exists, and for whatever length of time the need exists, God’s Word stands certain. If you are having a trial, whether it be momentary or continues for your lifetime, God’s promises of help are sufficient—there is no danger of applying on a day when it’s out of order, or somehow not available. As His word states in another place, His mercies “are new every morning.”* (Lamentations 3:23) There is no danger of it becoming obsolete, rusting, fading out, or diminishing in any way. Our feelings and circumstances may change, but none of that has any effect on the potency of God’s promises. If it doesn’t seem to be working right, we just haven’t properly understood the directions or obeyed them yet, or else we’ve gotten our vision stuck on our own ideas about what needs to be done and when. Just recently, at the end of a long day of both physical and mental exertions, the devil began to pile burdens on my mind, loading up all the things needing to be done, putting a negative look on everything that was going on around me, and generally seeking to overwhelm me with discouragement. Now the promise “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee”* (Isaiah 26:3) is true in all circumstances and at all times. I didn’t feel like it was true, the devil kept bringing to mind troubling thoughts, but I called on the Lord for help, to cast my burdens on Him and keep my mind on Him. It took a fair bit of battling and setting my will to trust the Lord, but it worked. It always works if the promise is used as designed. Let us not be mistaken in this. We may not put ourselves in position to take advantage of the promise, or we may simply not understand it, or we may be slow in using it, or we may give up and not cling to the promise, but God’s word is “settled in heaven,” and His “faithfulness is unto all generations.”

The application to our lives is very significant. If we waste our time wondering whether God’s Word is true or can be trusted, we are doing exactly that: wasting time. If we settle our minds and hearts that His Word is settled and sure, then we can apply ourselves in the useful areas of finding out what it takes to meet the conditions to get the help needed; we can go to God for help, focus on doing what He tells us to do, and get the benefit of His Word.

The passage makes reference to the creation and the physical world in this way: “Thou hast established the earth, and it abideth. They continue this day according to thine ordinances: for all are thy servants.” God’s physical laws operate with a reliability that makes science possible. The project to land men on the moon depended on extreme reliability of the physical laws of the universe continuing on unchanged. How could we have learned to walk on the earth as little children if the laws were not unchanged? Imagine a child trying to master the coordination to walk if the force of gravity was in constant change, or the speed at which the nerve impulses in his body were traveling constantly changed, or the structure of the floor the child tried to walk on was constantly changing from liquid to solid to gas, and so on. Even with the laws being unchanged, the effort to master the skill of walking (and the effort to land men on the moon) is substantial. There is so much to master in what seems fairly straightforward. How did men learn to fly in heavier-than-air machines? There was much effort to understand the different physical laws well enough (and a lot of misinformation to wade through) to know even what to construct, and then the applying of that knowledge.

God’s spiritual laws operate with a reliability that makes living for God possible. “Seek, and ye shall find.”* (Matthew 7:7; Luke 11:9) The effort to understand how they work can be substantial; but it is possible because they are “settled in heaven.” Just as in the operation of physical laws, the efforts to understand and make effective use of them may be long and arduous. We may need to learn one thing before we can understand or make use of another, or we may have some misinformation or prejudice that hinders us a long time, but if we want to live for God more than anything else, His promises are there for us to discover and take hold of. “Settled in heaven.”

Abridged from The Pilot’s Voice

The Pilot’s Voice: Part 3

Isabel C. Byrum

---

As Byron rode home from Sunday school with his mother that day, he tried hard to forget his cruel words to her and what had followed. But his mind continued to be troubled. In every way his mother was a wonder to him. He had never known her to be so kind, yet he never got the courage to tell her what had happened. Thus the week slipped away, and Sunday morning came again.

When they entered the chapel, Byron was surprised to see that James was not there. After sitting through Sunday school, he went outside and sat alone in a buggy. He heard the singing begin, but he did not care to go inside. Why had the others not come? Could it be that something had happened?

Byron started nervously as a covered buggy turned into the churchyard. With sudden fear, he saw two men alight and turn in his direction. Byron knew them both, for one was the Farmer Davis in whose orchard they had been only last week. They greeted him warmly, but his guilty conscience made him very uneasy and he could not look them in the face.

“Where were you, Byron,” Mr. Davis asked, after a long silence, “on Saturday night, one week ago?” Byron face flushed and then paled as he felt their eyes boring right through him.

“I was with James at his house,” he managed to say.

“Don’t hide it,” Mr. Davis said. “From your face I can tell that you are guilty, and the best thing for you to do is to acknowledge it and take your medicine.” Byron could not speak for the suffocating feeling that filled him.

Mr. Davis continued, “We know the facts of the case and have tracked you boys down, so tell the truth. We will stand by you if you do, as we believe you have gotten into this trouble from the bad influence of others.”

Byron could stand no more, and with quivering lips told the whole story. “But, oh!” he pleaded, “please do not tell my poor mother, for it would break her heart.” The men were kind, but they explained that this serious offense could not be hid, and they were going after the other boys. In bewilderment, Byron watched them drive off.

When the church service ended, Byron gladly made an escape to his cousin’s for the afternoon. How could he ever tell his mother? But one glance at her pale, sorrowful face when he returned home told him that she knew it all. In one bound the wayward boy was in his mother’s arms.

“Can you forgive me?” Byron cried, his wounded heart throbbing. “Oh, say that you can!”

“O my boy!” she moaned after he had told her the long sad story. “You cannot know how I have suffered over this. But God’s Spirit has surely been talking to you, in answer to my prayers. He wants to save you from your sinful ways and deliver your soul from all guilt that Jesus may come into your heart.”

“I do so want to be freed from this all, but this is such a mess I have to face.” In the gathering gloom Byron buried his face in his hands.

“Yes, dear,” Mother said quietly, “Mr. Davis said that as soon as he could locate the other boys an officer of the law would come to arrest you. Why don’t you come in for something to eat before bed?”

In the dark of his room that night Byron could only wonder why he had not heeded the warnings sooner. “O God!” he cried from the agony of his heart, “what shall I—what can I—do?”

A knock and footsteps sounded up the stairs. In tears Byron’s mother squeezed him and whispered, “One thing I must ask you before you must go, my boy: when you are put upon the witness stand, be truthful.” Then Byron was standing in the kitchen once more, an officer before him.

The man produced a paper and when the charges had been read he declared, “Byron, you are now under arrest.”

The weighty words fell like blows upon the boy. Byron looked at the stricken face of his broken-hearted mother, and almost despaired. God alone could get him out now.

---

It was with a tearful farewell that Byron left for the court house with his brother early the next morning. The picture was forever imprinted in his mind: Mother, so loving and sad, standing at the same little gate where she had plead with him only one week before. How could he forget?

They reached the squire’s house when it was still dark, and were quietly admitted in. Nervously Byron sat in the stillness thinking of home and all it meant to him. How long before he could return? A stomping at the door arrested his attention, and he looked up to see the officer once more. And James and George were with him.

In a glance Byron could see their disdain and scorn of him, they who had promised to stand by no matter what came. He remembered the vision of the gambling party in the store yard as a haunting memory. It surely had not paid to walk the way of deceit.

After a long anxious wait the trial was commenced. Byron was called up first and answered the questions as truthfully as he could. He could scarcely be calm in the presence of men he had known so well, and he recalled again the miller’s story. Why hadn’t he listened before the return was so difficult? He was indeed sorry now.

When the other boys were called forward, they denied all Byron had told. But their stories were so contradictory, that the officers were soon satisfied of the truth. The prosecutor then stood and gave the boys sound advice and admonishment, that they ought to abide by the laws if they would escape punishment.

“Now,” he continued, opening the law book, “your penalty for this violation includes a fine and prison sentence.” Byron gasped and felt the color drain from his face. How could he face it and what hope did he have to live this down? Relief flooded him when the officer arose and addressed them thus:

“James and George will take the full punishment for committing the crime and trying to shield themselves. But with Byron we will make a difference, since he has been truthful and sorry for the wrong he has been led into. When he has paid the fine he can return to his home and mother.”

How truly different Byron felt leaving that court and the old evil companionships behind. He desired only a pure and upright life and for the happiness and satisfaction that it would bring. After a long silent journey, he was glad to see home once more.

How changed and beautiful it all seemed! Mother’s face shone with a sweet glad smile, though still deeply lined with grief. She gladly received him and had to hear at once all about the trial and the favor he had been shown. “Oh, I knew that you were praying for me,” Byron said.

“Do you not believe that Jesus, at this very moment, is holding out the life-line to you?” she asked very earnestly. “He has paid the penalty for sin and wants to take yours.”

“Yes, Mother, with all my heart I believe, but the way is like mountains before me,” Byron answered.

“There is only one way to enter heaven, but the Christian life is not a hard one, for the Holy Spirit is sent for our Guide and helper,” Mother said. She brought out her Bible and talked a long while with Byron about the Lord’s dealings and call to the needy, thirsty soul. “And He is so eager for you to come,” she said.

After the brothers had eaten, Byron slipped off to his room. In weariness the reproaches whirled about him, until, at last, sleep came to his relief. He awoke rested enough to spend a few hours in the fields before supper.

Working in the same field where he had once hid the bean seeds, Byron remembered his mother’s faithful dealings. He could see that the same deceit of childhood had continued to grow until it had brought him into his present trouble. How carefully Mother had worked to teach him, but in the end he had rejected it all. It was only now that he saw the advantage of the pure life that could be his.

The next day the newspaper was brought in and Byron picked it up with trepidation. Yes, there was the whole story. Their arrest, their crimes, and their trial—all had been given to the public. He felt that with this thing hanging over him he was disgraced forever.

As the stolen tenth had grown and become troublesome to the miller, just so the results from the stealing of the eggs had increased on Byron’s hands. The wrong to his mother had spread to others. Kindly his mother helped him work to make things right with Mr. Davis and the others, but some battles Byron had to fight alone.

It was Sunday once again. By the gentle persuasion of Mother, Byron mustered up his courage to face his friends. They were waiting outside the chapel, but he quietly took a seat without speaking to them. When the minister talked about the perfect plan of salvation, Satan whispered, “Just wait a little while; you are not quite ready,” and Byron listened. But the patient, tender Voice continued to urge that he change his course and begin aright for life’s journey.

---

Consider:

Did Byron reap what he had sowed?

After the adventure of that one horrible night, how did Byron feel inside? Why would he feel that way?

Look at Byron’s character compared to his so-called friends. Was he really a sissy or more courageous? How did his mother affect him?

What made Byron nervous when a buggy turned into the churchyard?

Was Mr. Davis a good neighbor?

When Byron determined to change the direction of his life, was his heart and life changed by Jesus?

Who is piloting Byron’s “ship”?

---

“I will say of the LORD, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God in him will I trust.”* (Psalm 91:2)

Giving, Giving, Giving

Wives, and mothers, does this sound familiar? Always doing something for someone, with hardly a minute to spare for yourself? I can almost hear you echoing “yes.” It has always helped me to get a view of other mother’s trials and victories in the home. The devil would like to make us feel we are the only one in the daily toil and struggles of training children, wiping the splattered mirror again, looking for your husband’s lost paper or book that was just on the table minutes ago, and umpteen other tasks. Take courage! I want to share how the Lord has encouraged me of late in continuing to give. Listen to this bit of poetry; it has encouraged me on many times:

“Go break to the needy sweet charity’s bread,
For giving is living,” the angel said.
“And must I be giving again and again?”
My peevish and pitiless answer ran.
“Oh, no,” said the angel, piercing me through.
“Just give till the Master stops giving to you.”

Doesn’t that put things into the proper perspective!? It also helps us to stop and thank the Lord for allowing us to be on the giving side. It could be that we would be in the position of needing help instead of being the helper. Jesus said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.”* (Acts 20:35) As a wife and mother, we are in a wonderful place of service. Yes, sometimes it may look dull and dreary, but any place in life has its hard times. Go to the Master for a renewal of spiritual energy and strength. Ask Him for a song to lift your eyes above the cares of this life. (One veteran mom keeps a hymnal in the window above the kitchen sink!)

It is amazing how far a blessing from the Lord will carry you! His anointing on a scripture makes it all come alive. I had been in the habit of giving from our pantry to others in need. Then my husband was laid off his job. We had unemployment benefits, but it was becoming increasingly hard to keep the pantry supplied for our family and was indeed hard to keep up helping others. One morning in prayer I was inspired to plead the promise in Proverbs 28:27. I told Him, “Lord, it says in Your word, ‘He that giveth unto the poor shall not lack.’ ” I went away feeling blessed, knowing it was all in God’s hands. You’ll be amazed to know what followed. In a couple of weeks, a friend was graciously granted permission to take the out-dated dairy and deli products at a grocery store, which she shared with us. This is normally not allowed, but I knew why; the Lord had given her favor. The Lord has many ways with which to supply our needs! Now I had even more to give others than before! Isn’t that just like the Lord? “His ways [are] past finding out!”* (Romans 11:33)

As I pondered on this blessing and the scripture, “He that giveth to the poor,” I asked myself the question, “Who then is poor?” Aren’t our own children poor and needy? If you don’t think so, just look at all the little neglected children. Mothers going off to work, some by choice, others by necessity. How these poor children need the guidance of a loving mother, but it is deprived them. Mothers, God has given you a wonderful place to serve Him. The Lord blessed the little children while here on earth and now He wants to bless them through you. Seek Him often for His guidance to give unto your children.

The Lord has allowed our home to be a little haven to a few needy children. May God help us to continue to give and share our happy home with them. One day recently I was preparing dinner. There was a little girl chattering away continually as she happily swung her doll in a basket which hung from a cord strung from wall to wall. The constant chattering was getting on my nerves, but she was so happy, I couldn’t bear to say anything to mar her pleasure. I begin asking the Lord to help me bear the noise. The song, “Learning to Lean,” soon came to my mind. I began to sing softly. The chattering ceased. She was listening! What an unexpected blessing! How we thank the Lord for His help through the trials.

Older sisters can be in places of giving also. One whom I have known has gone on to her reward now. She had the gift of listening and praying with others. Once, she got so tired of ladies coming and telling her all of their troubles. She prayed, “Lord, can’t you stop them?” But instead the Lord gave her more grace to listen, counsel and pray with them. I am sure she is reaping the benefits of those hours given to the Master. Didn’t He say, “Whosoever shall give you a cup of water to drink in my name, because ye belong to Christ, verily I say unto you, he shall not lose his reward.”* (Mark 9:41) How refreshing can be the counseling and prayers of older sisters!

Jesus told us to “Give, and it shall be given unto you.”* (Luke 6:38) This scripture was surely fulfilled in an older woman whose grown children gave her very special attention. A daughter occupied a duplex next to her at first as the mother begin to decline in years. When it became impossible for her to care for her at home and it was necessary to place her in a care facility, that daughter or one of the other children went every day to feed their mother. The care those children gave their mother was impressive. “She must have been a very good mother to be reaping all this special care,” was spoken to the daughter. Her reply was, “Oh, she was a wonderful mother.” More of her life was revealed. She had continued to live with an unfaithful husband for the sake of the children. What unselfish love she had given them. She had given and now was reaping the benefits. The Bible is so true. “We reap what we sow.”

Be encouraged dear mothers, take the time to train your children in the tasks around the home. I know it is easier to do it yourself than to train them, but what benefits you would both lose. As their home skills develop and little by little you turn areas of responsibility over to them, you will have more time to spare yourself and take it a little easier.

We trust these thoughts will have refreshed and encouraged you in whatever stage of giving you are in life.

Your sister in Christ,
Elois

Welcome to Wonderful Work Charts

Abigail Spinks

Clothes are strewn throughout the house from a dress-up parade, the sink is full of dishes from the children making cookies—the floor feels like it’s been given a coating of water, flour and sugar plus oil—the children think it’s great—a perfect skating plaza. Flour smears each face, the smell of burnt cookies permeates the air. Meanwhile, the toddler is happily playing with water from the toilet and the baby cries unceasingly for his dinner….

Do you ever feel like all you do is keep your children (hopefully, most of the time) out of (serious) trouble while your home resembles a bombing zone? You run after them, trying to keep things in reasonable order as they mess things up—and you feel tired all the time. Is there ever a breather in the race?

Well, I’m not married—nor do I have children of my “own,” as most people would say. But God has given me a love and burden for the neglected children in our life whose parents’ actions say they could care less how they turn out. It is our privilege to raise and train these precious children—as you have yours—and as all mothers, I want to do it right.

When we want to do it right—and dream of the perfectly managed home—why are our dreams shattered by bone-hard reality of the difficultness of the task? When we want our home to be an example of cleanliness, where have we failed when all that is accomplished is “getting through the day” to clean up after the children are in bed at night? (Except we’re too tired; so it doesn’t get done then either.) Well, I’m no expert by any means, but I thought I’d share something that has helped us in our home with the issue of house work. It is amazing how much calmer the household is when the home is clean and in order—it really does something to the atmosphere. So please don’t put your hand on your ears and say, “I just can’t manage one more thing because of all these children—talking about clean houses will just make me feel guilty!” We don’t propose to have a clean home in spite of your children, but with their help. There is a big difference.

Work Charts

The Work Chart system works well for us. It is a simple method that needs enforcing by Mom (children don’t come disciplined!) but which will catch the children’s interest and enthusiasm. To construct one, you will need:

• 1 foot square piece of cardboard per child
• Various large pieces of wall paper, wrapping paper or plain white paper
• markers / crayons
• stapler
• tape
• index cards

Cover your cardboard with paper (wall paper works best because of the thickness)—write at the top, “My Hard Work Chart.” You could also include a scripture about diligence, such as Nehemiah 4:6: “For the people had a mind to work.” Or you could write a favorite poem relating to work. One of ours is the “ ‘I Can’t’ is a Sluggard” poem. If there’s anything a child doesn’t want to be, it is a sluggard—somehow it is not their idea of a happy life.

Anyway, back to the Work Charts. Once you’ve labeled it, cut out two identical pockets of wall paper and label them, “To Do” and “Done!” (or something more creative if you wish). Staple and tape to bottom half of chart. Make sure index cards can be inserted easily. Children love to make and decorate—personalize their charts—so while they’re busy with this, you sit down and make a list of all the things that need to be done each day, and each week. For instance, do your children have pets that you instruct to feed 2,764 times before the job is accomplished each day? Mark some cards “Daily,” and write “feed ____, water ____.” Other “every-days” might include “hang-up clothes” or “make bed,” or you could include school subjects. Initialing your child’s name on each card if you have several children makes things a bit easier. Also, for your young ones that can’t read, have them draw pictures for a reminder after you explain what the job is. (Be sure to have the written words above so you don’t forget!)

As for all the other jobs, divide them up according to age and size and ability. For these non-daily jobs, mark as, “Wednesday: vacuum bedroom floor,” and so on. An older child (eight or nine) can easily mop, while a five or six-year-old can dust even the highest shelves with a chair. Beating rugs, sweeping, shining mirrors, vacuuming, dusting, cleaning cobwebs, moping, scrubbing tubs (even a very young child can do this one!), cleaning sinks—the list is endless!

My mother taught me a fun and interesting way for children to dust—with socks! Daddy’s socks (or anklets) work best. Spray with dusting formula and slip one onto each of the child’s hands. Also, because my six-year-old still has some trouble with recognizing alphabet letters, we spray the dusting formula in the shape of a letter—which shows on dark socks. She loves this and it has become a favorite job. Intermixing work with school and play makes the jobs more pleasant while still getting a clean home. Children really can do a lot—and have fun at it, too! Although some of the jobs may not be done to my perfection—for instance when a ten-year-old forgets the soap in a load of clothes and they must be done over—they are learning, and if they are doing their best, the job is satisfactory.

Once they’ve completed their jobs, they can move the cards from the “To Do” pocket to “Done!” pocket. All daily cards at the end of the day are moved back, of course, and at the beginning of the week, the cycle starts over.

We’ve really enjoyed this way of doing work—as long as I stay on top of it and remind them to check their charts, things go smoothly. Of course, as with everything, this will get old after awhile—but it does help to discipline them to regular, consistent, responsible work. Another incentive for mine is if they finish their Friday work on Thursday, we will spend the afternoon at the library on Friday—a definite favorite place!

Well, I hope this can be of use to someone. Now it’s your turn. Write and tell me what has made your life easier as a mother. So much can be handed down to the benefit of others if we just open up and share a little. We’re all busy—we all have excuses, but if someone hadn’t shared this idea with me, I wouldn’t be able to pass it on. Thank you, Mother!

---

Recommended Reading: Betty’s Secret and other Stories by Grandmother Lois, is a delightful book for young children. Perfect for devotional reading or before nap time. The stories are applicable to childhood and filled with lessons they need to learn. Write: Rod and Staff Publishers, Inc., PO Box 3, Hwy. 172, Crockett, Kentucky 41413; (606) 522-4348 for your free catalog.

We’d like to feature a theme on “Mothers” and need your help. What is your best advice to new mothers? What has helped you and proven a blessing throughout the years? On homemaking or spiritual aspects of motherhood, we welcome your letters, articles, notes for Heart of Her Husband.

Quick and Easy Summertime Treats

---

Dandy Candy

Bring to a boil:

• 3/4 c. honey

Add:

• 3/4 c. powdered milk
• 1/2 c. rolled oats
• 1/2 c. peanut butter
• 1/2 c. chopped nuts
• 1/2 c. chocolate chips
  or carob chips
  or raisins
  or dried fruit
• 1/3 c. sesame seeds
• 1/2 c. dried coconut
• 1/3 c. wheat germ
• 1 T. vanilla

Mix well and press into an 8-inch square buttered container. Cut into squares, cover, and chill until time to serve.

---

Yogurt Popsicles

Mix together:

• 2 c. plain yogurt
• 6-oz. frozen orange juice concentrate (do not dilute)
• 1 t. vanilla
• 1-2 T. honey

Pour into popsicle forms and freeze. (If you don’t have forms, cups with spoons or popsicle sticks in them work fine.)

From Life’s Story and Healings

Nellie’s Vision

Nellie Poulos

I wish to relate a dream or vision I had while we were living near Neosho, Missouri. I do not remember the exact time, but I was about seventeen [c. 1907].

I saw lives of many companions ruined by marrying one who promised to love them and then were left alone, deserted and brokenhearted, and I became afraid to think about getting married, lest I, too, be left alone and deserted. It seemed one did not know whom to trust, and I feared many or maybe most of the men had become unsafe to trust. In this state of mind and feeling so sorry for some of my friends, I decided I would remain single and be happy with, and help care for, my parents and live for God. But I was forgetting to let God lead in all things and was setting up my own plans. Through a fear of the disappointment of the future I had my mind fixed. But our dear Lord is faithful to His children and will help us if we let Him. It was while in this condition I had this dream, or dreams.

About two o’clock in the morning I saw a young man appear to me. It was a head and shoulders with about half of the upper part of his body. He was smiling and looking at me. He never said a word; but I knew he wanted to tell me something, and as he disappeared I awoke. I did not know what to think; for me to have a dream like that, and I could not think of any one I had seen or known who looked like that. I prayed about it and soon went back to sleep and never thought any more about it. I did not even think of it the next day, so it could not have been on my mind to cause me to dream about it further. But the next night at the same time the same young man appeared the same way and as before, he disappeared. I awoke. I was somewhat troubled this time. I began to pray mightily. I told the Lord I did not understand this and if He wanted to get something to me, to help me to know, or, if the enemy was working in dreams to bother me, to rebuke it. I prayed for some time and then lay down and went to sleep, and, as before, I never thought of it anymore. But the next night at the same time I dreamed that I was at a big camp meeting. We were having a good meeting and a minister in my dream, a very close friend of ours, came to me and wanted me to come to one of the saints’ homes and meet a young man who wanted to get acquainted with me, and who wanted a Christian companion. He continued to tell me how this young man from the old country was not accustomed to dating and courting as we were and he wanted me to go make his acquaintance. I told him I was not seeking to get married, but he said, “You can get acquainted.” I did, and it was the one I had seen the two previous nights. As I sat down to talk in my dream, it was not long before arrangements were made for marriage. In my dream I saw myself walk down the church aisle and was married to this young man by this preacher before a large audience. As the marriage vows were finished I awoke and sat up in bed. It had all been so real it seemed as if it had happened. I thought, “Since I did not know the preacher and I did not know the young man, what could this mean?”

Then I realized I had not asked God about my life in the future. I was planning it myself. On my knees in earnest prayer to God I promised to seek Him to guide my life. I said, “Man can be so deceptive: we are not able to know the heart of man, but Thou canst, and while I do not feel able for such a thing as to choose a life companion, yet if You can get more glory out of my life married than single, it’s Your life; but You will have to do the choosing.” I prayed and thought about the details of the dream until the rest of the family awoke. While I could not understand it, I felt God wanted a submission of my life to His will, which I renewed to God that morning. My mother felt it was a vision of my future.

A sister whom the Lord used to help us find His people was Sister Nola Porter. It was not long after this until these folks rented a building in town just a few blocks from our place to hold a meeting, and told us an evangelist, Brother W. H. Shoot was coming to hold the meeting. My mother, sister, and I went. Father was not feeling well and was not able to go.

We walked in and sat down near the front. They had a platform up in front and a row of seats behind the pulpit where the ministers and workers sat. Just before the meeting started, a young man walked in and up the aisle to the platform and sat down. I had never seen the man before and had not met him, but as soon as I saw him I recognized him as being the one who in my dream at Neosho had introduced me to, and later married me to, the young man that appeared to me. A strange feeling came over me and I said to myself, “O Lord, what does this mean?” But I sat quietly, thought, and listened closely. The preaching was wonderful and with power. After meeting we were introduced to Brother Shoot, but no one knew what was going on in my mind, and I did not know what to think, myself.

After we had started home, my sister and mother were talking about the meeting and how much they enjoyed it. My sister said, “Nellie, how did you like the meeting? What’s the matter, you have not said a word?”

I said, “Oh, the meeting was good, I enjoyed it; but that preacher is the one I saw in my dream at Neosho who introduced me to that young man, and we were married.”

She said, “He is?”

Mother said, “We may find the young man around somewhere.”

Now this had been around six or seven years since I had had the dream.

We had a good meeting. Some souls were saved and several received help. Bro. Shoot moved to Carthage and was pastor of the congregation. We became very close to him and his family. Father was in poor health and they were in our home much of the time. The work grew and God blessed, but we never mentioned a word to Brother Shoot about the dream. It was a secret between God and me, for God to work out as He saw fit.

---

I had felt for some months we should go to the Oklahoma State Camp Meeting the summer of 1928. Plans were being made for us to go when we were at Searcy, but we moved out in the country, and I could not get work. I said, “Lord, if You want me to go, You’ll have to open the way.”

The man my sister married was a widower and had some grown children. That summer a son and his family came to see them. A short time before they were to leave, the son was talking about their trip home and their going through Oklahoma. I asked what part, and he said they would go through Tulsa. That was where Brother and Sister Barton lived. Edith, my sister, asked them if they would have room for an extra passenger. He said they would have room for one and to be ready to leave Sunday. I had about two days to wash, iron, mend, and pack. I had worked hard Saturday and packed my suitcase and had everything ready to go. I really felt God wanted me to go and was very happy for the way.

His wife was not there when he said I could go and get ready. She was spending the last few days with her folks, a few miles from us. Late Saturday afternoon just after I finished getting everything together, they drove in, and the son said, “Nellie, I have bad news for you. We are not going to have room to take you. I am sorry, but my wife did not know about your wanting to go and she told a man, a friend of ours, he could go. He has a job back there and had no way to go but hitchhike. He is going to work and get money to send for his family. She told him he could go. We talked it over, and since he is a man with a family we’d better let him go; yours is more a pleasure trip.”

I told him that it was all right.

He said, “I am sorry to disappoint you, since you wanted to be in the meeting.”

I said, “That’s all right. If the Lord wants me in the meeting He can make a way for me yet. I am glad for the man to go and get work.”

I was so sure I could not go with them I went in to unpack my suitcase, but company came and stayed so late I did not get it done that night. The next morning by the time the work was done it was time to go to Sunday school. So we just left the suitcase packed. Sunday school was over and we were all out in the yard ready to go home when someone came up to Lawrence (that was the name of the son) and said something to him. I was standing nearby but did not know the man and paid no attention to them.

Lawrence said, “Nellie, did you hear that?”

I said I did not.

He asked if my suitcase was still packed and I told him it was. He said the man who was going with them had received a message that changes were made, he had no job, and for him not to come, so that left the place open for me. He thought that the Lord must have wanted me to go because I had said the Lord would open a way for me if He wanted me to go.

I said, “All right, but I am sorry the man lost his job.” We went home, ate dinner, and loaded the car. We were soon on our way.

The Barton’s gave us a hearty welcome. We enjoyed our visit there and I shall never forget it. While I was there Sister Barton and I were talking about things; my sister getting married, and so on. I asked her to pray for God to give me someplace where I could be in meetings and get work to care for myself as I could not at my sister’s since she lived out in the country.

Sister Barton said, “He will give you a home, but it may be in the way of a man.”

I replied that I did not care to get married.

But she said, “That may be God’s way to give you a home.”

I scarcely knew what to think or say, but said no more, she seemed so sure.

---

At the camp meeting, the young people’s meeting was at 9:30 a.m., just before the morning service. I had been attending these services. One morning after the meeting was over, some of the young people came to me and asked if I would like to go to town with them. They had decided to walk to town before the next service. The service had been short that morning and they had a little more time than usual. I looked at the time and saw we could not get back until after the next service would be under way so did not go. As I sat there in the tabernacle I noticed a few moments later that all the young people had left. No one was there except Brother W. H. Shoot, who came in just before the young people’s meeting had closed and was sitting across the tabernacle. An old man, a stranger had come, also, and sat on a bench just outside the tent. I was very bashful and timid and when I saw I was alone I rather hated to sit there for that length of time, so I dropped my head in meditation as to what to do. It was very hot outside and I did not have time to walk to my room and be back in time for service, but decided to go out and walk a couple blocks or so and come back about time for the people to begin to gather. I reached to pick up my books to leave as Brother Shoot walked to the seat in front of me. As he did he said, “Good morning, Sister Nellie.” I had not noticed him coming, I was so absorbed with my thoughts until he spoke. He said, “I would like to talk to you a little if you have no objection. I have been praying God to give me a chance to talk to you if He wanted me to, for three or four days and now since we are almost alone I felt it was a good time.” I consented, asking him what it was.

At the same time the enemy was accusing, “Now you see you have done something wrong.” I had no idea of what I had done. I learned the enemy is an accuser of the brethren and he will accuse of something wrong but not locate the wrong. When God condemns He shows just what one has done wrong. I had an open heart and if I had done wrong I wanted to know what it was and was anxious to know.

To my great surprise, when I said, “What is it?” he answered, “Sister Nellie, you know I came home from a trip in California just before the Oklahoma City Camp Meeting. Well, there is a young brother there I am acquainted with who is a Greek. This last trip I stayed in his home with him. He feels the Lord is going to give him a Christian companion and he prefers an American girl, as he feels she could be more help to him than a Greek. The Greeks are most all of the Orthodox religion. They do not know about the Bible way and he wants a Christian woman to be a help to him. He speaks broken English, but is a nice looking, strong, young man. He has a job and has bought a nice little four-room cottage and furnished it. He is living there, expecting God to give him a companion. While I was there this time he told me about it and asked me to pray about it with him, and as I traveled about I might meet someone I could help him to get in touch with. As you were standing talking to the young people the other morning I sat down across the tent and the Lord spoke to me, ‘There is Brother Gus’ wife.’ I said, ‘No, Lord, you know how she is so reserved and is never seen going out; how could I talk to her? I am sure she would say no.’ But again, ‘That is Brother Gus’ wife.’ I said, ‘Lord, you know what a poor place this is to talk to anyone alone, and if you want me to talk to her give me a chance so I will not have to embarrass her, by speaking to her so others might wonder what we were talking about.’ I do not know where everyone is this morning; but God said, ‘I have made the way,’ so I am telling you. This is not matrimony. I am asking, if God opens the way for a company to go to California, as we hope to do this fall—Brother and Sister C. E. Orr and myself—would you go and stand a chance to meet this brother? Or, if the company does not go, would you consent to correspond with him? I do not want you to answer me now. You pray about it and give me an answer before the meeting closes.” He went on to say that this brother, being a Greek, many of their customs and ways were different to ours and if we met he would be ready to talk about what was on his heart and mind and not wait to get acquainted and court. “Now I have done what I felt God wanted me to do, and it’s left up to you. Will you promise me you will pray before you give me an answer? Not just think it over?”

I said, “Yes, I will,” not knowing what else to do, but feeling in my mind that I did not see how it would go any further. I realized why the young people had decided to leave without a reason and why I did not go; God had ordered it that way. I was so surprised at Brother Shoot’s talk, and I never once thought of the dream I had years ago about getting married. The morning service soon started and the words, “There is Brother Gus’ wife,” and then, “Will you promise to pray about it?” kept coming to me. I was in trouble! “What does this mean?” I would ask myself. Meeting was at last over. I admit I did not remember much of what had been said, even as hard as I tried. My mind would again be interrupted with the words the Lord had spoken through Brother Shoot, “There is Brother Gus’ wife; will you promise to pray?” I found myself anxious to get away and pray, for I could not understand. The dinner bell rang, but I went to my room—my heart more disturbed all the time.

I wanted to talk to the Lord. I went and fell on my knees. It seemed I did not know how to pray, but I burst into a flood of tears and said, “Lord, what does this mean? I need you; help me, and calm my troubled soul.” As I continued to wait on God I told Him how I wanted to do His will, that I did not want to rebel, but He knew I was not seeking an earthly companion. I asked Him to comfort my heart, and as I promised Brother Shoot to pray, for Him to give me an answer to give him. I did not want to consent to write to him for fear it would lead to marriage. As I said this, the Lord began to talk very definitely to me.

“Correspondence is not matrimony. Did you not promise if I chose you a companion you would accept? And how do you know this is not the one?” Then my dream all came afresh to me. I sat back on the floor and thought. It was the camp meeting where I heard about him and it was Brother Shoot that told me about him in my dream, and he was of a different nationality. Then Sister Watson (Key) said last January, God was going to give me a companion. Sister Barton, on my way to the camp meeting said God was going to give me a home, but it might be in the way of a man. And again, “Correspondence is not marriage. Don’t say no; give God a chance. If you want to refuse, you could later. Be careful.”

I got up, washed myself and looked at the time. The afternoon service was going on. I did not realize I had been there so long. I got ready and went on to service.

---

The next day or two passed. I think it was the last Saturday of the meeting Brother Shoot came to me and said, “Sister Nellie, we are not able to arrange the trip to California as we had hoped. Brother and Sister Orr cannot go at this time. But I plan on leaving soon after this meeting and I will see Brother Gus in about two or three weeks from now. What shall I tell him?”

I had not only prayed that afternoon but I was still praying for God to make His will plain and work it out. I said, “After much prayer and what you said I have decided it will do no harm to correspond. That is not saying I will marry.”

He said, “That is right, and I feel sure you have done the right thing.” It seemed a feeling came over me that God was working and was going to provide for me.

On the way home, I stopped for a few days to visit an old-time friend we had known since I was a child. She was very close to us and interested in my welfare and that of the family. While there and talking of the family affairs I felt I should not keep my secret of the future and told her what had happened at the camp meeting and that I did not know what the outcome would be. She said, “Nellie, it surely is the Lord. You have been faithful to your home and parents; now Edith has married and you are alone. I think it would be wonderful. You need someone to help you and be with you. We have been praying God to give you a companion and so have your father and mother. I had a letter from her since you have been away. Oh! She will be glad to hear it.” Before I left she gave me material for a new dress and other things to help me get ready for my trip, for she felt sure I would soon go, and asked me to let her know what I did.

I went on home and told my parents what happened. They felt sure it was of the Lord; but still I did not know what to really think, so I went to fasting and prayer and asked the Lord if it were His will, to work it out so I would know it without a doubt. If it were not His will to hinder it in every way. I fasted most of the time for three weeks, going as much as four days at a time without food or water.

In about two and one-half weeks I received a letter. I believe in the third letter I received, he asked me if I would come to California if he would send me a ticket. He was working and it was hard for him to get away. He could send the ticket and we could meet each other and get acquainted and talk over the future better than writing. He had made arrangements for a sister minister with whom I was acquainted to meet me and take me to her home, if I would come. It was at first a big step to go so far away and among strangers, and not even know anything about the man or his ways whom I was going to see.

But by this time I was definitely sure it was the will of the Lord for me to go. I wrote and told him I would go, and began making arrangements for the trip to California. Of course, there was nothing definite about our getting married. No one knew there might be any such thoughts except my father and mother and sister. My brother-in-law did not even know it, but he was a great hand to tease. When we told him I was expecting to make a trip to California he just supposed I was going for meetings. He asked how soon I would be leaving. I told him they wanted to know if they sent me a ticket if I would go, and I wrote them I would, so if I got the ticket it probably would not be long. He wanted to know how long I planned to be gone. I told him I did not know. He laughed and said, “Oh, you will go out there and meet some good looking man and never come back to live here. What do you say?”

I said, “It could be possible.” He never once thought of my doing it.

I finished getting ready, and early the morning of October 1, 1928, I bade farewell to my folks and got in the car with a neighbor who was taking me to the train to start on my long journey to California; not knowing altogether where I was going, but I knew the Lord said to go.

---

I arrived at my destination, the morning of October 4th. The sister met me at the station and took me to her home. I was very tired after the long journey. The last night on the train there was a big snow storm in the mountains. Something went wrong with the heating system and we were some hours without fire. Almost everyone on the train took severe colds and coughing. The sister prepared a good hot meal. After eating and visiting a while, she put me to bed to rest.

That evening after Brother Gus, as they all called him, came home from work, he ate, dressed, and came over to meet me. So far everything had worked according to the dream I had at Neosho and now I was about ready to really meet him. He came in and I was introduced to him. He was exactly the same man I had seen, only his hair was a little darker. How could I doubt it was God picking a companion for me? Although I had never met him before, he did not seem like a stranger to me. We sat down in the living room together and all talked awhile. The sister and her husband used to live back east and he was quite interested in asking about the meetings I had attended and the different ones he knew, but Brother Gus had little to say.

After while the sister took us to a room to ourselves where we could talk and be alone. He soon began to tell me he was glad to meet me and how he had prayed God to give him a Christian companion. When Brother Shoot came back and told him about me, he decided he would like to meet me and talk things over, and if we did not feel it was of the Lord for us to come together, all right, but if we felt it was of the Lord we could make arrangements better than by writing. He went into detail about his desire for a companion and why he preferred an American girl; how he had prayed even after he wrote me and asked God to make me not willing to come if I were not the one for him and to make me willing if I were the one. Different things he had asked God to work out if I were the one, God had done so in answer to prayer every time.

He asked me to express myself if I had any answers to prayer. I told him briefly of how I prayed at the camp meeting and since, and I felt it was of the Lord for me to come and that I had a dream when I was a girl living at Neosho, Missouri of meeting a young man.

He said, “Am I the one?”

I said, “Yes, when I met you tonight you looked exactly like the one, only your hair is a little darker than his was.”

He said, “Sister, surely God is in this. At that time I was in Greece and my hair was lighter, just as you have described. You lived at Neosho, Missouri, at the time of the dream and Brother Shoot was living on a claim in Colorado. None of us knew anything about the other. Now here we all are in California together. It is a miracle the way He has brought us here.” We had been in the room talking for a long while when we came to this point. At this time he asked me if I were willing to be his life companion.

After all was fixed and settled that it was of the Lord, he suggested we just make arrangements for the wedding and get married right away. He was alone and I was away from home and it would make it better for both of us. I was a little surprised at making all arrangements at once, but decided it would be all right. We thought we could have a quiet wedding, as I was a stranger and didn’t know the people, or just where arrangements could be made to have the wedding. We called the sister who was waiting in the living room, to help make arrangements. At first she could scarcely believe we had things fixed for a wedding. Upon convincing her we had it fixed, she said God had really planned it before we met. They had a little chapel in San Bernardino and at once she suggested we be married there since all the saints there, and many of the men he worked with, would want to attend. Brother Shoot was to hold a meeting starting in a few days so October 14th, at 4 p.m., following the Sunday afternoon services, was set as the time for the wedding and a reception following at his home. The next ten days were busy days getting ready for the wedding.

We did not expect very many at first, but soon learned that a number of old acquaintances who had moved to California, now lived in Los Angeles, Whittier, and Glendale. When my old friends learned I was out here and planning to marry Brother Gus, who was very well known, we had a large crowd for a small building. The day of the wedding was a beautiful day and it was estimated there were two hundred or two hundred fifty present.

---

I want to say right here, God has blessed our lives together and after thirty years we are much closer to each other than when we started life together. Although we were happy then, we are much closer now. Each year weaves a new link that binds us closer to each other.

He did not kiss me until after we were married although he saw me and was with me every day after my arrival, going places, buying things, making arrangements and doing things for the wedding. One evening, a day or two before we were married, he said, “I have not asked you for a kiss nor do I intend to until after we are married. Then you will be mine and we can kiss as often as we want to.”

I said, “That is all right.”

He told me after we were married that he did not care to be kissing me before we were married, and he was afraid I would have refused him if he had asked.

This looseness in courtship and lying in each other’s arms and kissing is not good. Many a precious young person’s downfall has started in being too free with a friend. Keep yourself in your place and if you get married you have a lifetime to love each other, and if you don’t, you are better off, for we need to know how to control our affections.

I want to say to young and old, it pays to wait on God. Don’t get in a hurry. When you get in a hurry it is often lust instead of love and that will not stand the storms of life, but love will. If you are a Christian you may say, “Oh, there are so few Christians and these people I am attracted to claim to be saved.” The question should be, “Is God in it?” If not, wait on the Lord. If you are a Christian, you are not your own, and should be willing to submit your life into the hands of One who sees and knows the future. Some say, “I do not want to be an old maid.” You had better be an old maid if God does not have it otherwise, than to marry some unsaved man who may desert you for another. In that case you’d be left alone anyway and may backslide and lose your soul. When you choose your way on any line you cannot have the favor of God on your life as you would have if you let Him choose. You had better live twenty years together and be happy than to be together fifty years and be unhappy. Let us quote Brother C. E. Orr:

When two are in love, it is difficult to determine the will of God. There needs be a perfect yielding to the will of God. It is one of the most difficult periods in the history of man for him to yield his will to God. Many have thought they had, but were mistaken. A young man says, “I thought I had my will entirely surrendered to God, but when I prayed and my lips said, ‘Lord Thy will be done,’ my heart said, ‘But give me Betty.’ ” Watch your heart, young Christian. Do not give too much heed to what the lips say. Listen to the heart beats. Does it beat in perfect unison with the will of God?

God wants you to be guided, not by your feelings, but by His providences, by the counsels of true friends, and by the good, sound mind He is willing to give you.

[Charles E. Orr; The Instruction of Youth in the Christian Life, “Courtship and Marriage”]

Here is a poem my father composed just after I left home to get married.

Nellie’s Departure

Dear Nellie was the last to leave our parental fond embrace,
And to choose another in our place.
But at last she has gone to the Golden West,
Where she has found a cozy nest.
Where oranges bloom and flowers and fruit abundant grow,
Away from winter’s cold bleak winds of ice, sleet, and snow.
There she him did find,
Who is with her of one faith, one heart, one mind.

So Gus and she may be a blessing to those they meet,
In private homes or crowded streets;
By living a pure and holy life,
Above this world of sin and strife.
And so we wish them joy and peace and love,
At last a home in heaven above.
In life we wish them health and golden store,
How can we wish them anymore?

---

I want to relate an incident that happened much later, for the encouragement of others. A girl in our congregation grew to the age of desiring a companion. She was a good Christian girl and we all loved her. There were very few young people in California at that time, who were saved, and if one got saved he or she almost had to stand alone as far as young people were concerned. One day she came to me and talked to me about her burden. She wanted to live for God and if she did it looked like she could not have a home of her own, for there just weren’t any Christian boys. After talking I said, “Sister Alta, put God first.” She said that was what she wanted to do. I said, “God knows the future and when He sees you need a companion He can provide you one. When He saw Adam needed a companion He created him one and He can save one just for you if you keep all submitted to Him.” She said that was just what she meant to do, and she did. We had prayer and asked God to help her and provide for her future life for her good and to His glory. Time went on and she continued to live for God. One day her brother came to town to visit them. He had with him a young man who was practicing to be a prize fighter and had come to town to take lessons for fighting. Prayer meeting night came and her mother, Sister Davenport, asked them to come to meeting. They did, but the young man had never been in a meeting like it. Sister Davenport, being a great hand to invite folks to meeting, asked him to attend Sunday night services. He liked our way of having meeting and began attending regularly. When we held a revival, a short time later, he got saved, gave up his training, and really lived for God. Later his affections were turned to Sister Alta, and in time they got married. As he grew spiritually and learned of the doctrine of the church, the Lord called him to the ministry. His wife has told me, “Sister Poulos, you said God could give me a companion if He had to save one just for me, and it seems He did just that.”

We Trusted in God: The Maiden’s Dream Fulfilled

Toward the end of the third year at the publishing house, my burden for the work there begin to lift. I had consecrated to stay single if that was what the Lord wanted. There had been some who had shown interest but I could not get a clearness from the Lord, so I stood on my consecration. I asked the Lord, “What am I supposed to do now?” It wasn’t long after that, that I had a dream in which a young man whom I knew just appeared and was gone again. Then another night in a dream I saw him preaching, and yet in another dream, we were getting married. After each of these dreams I committed them to God. I told Him no confidence would be put in them unless I received some attention from this young man, knowing that dreams can be of God or from other sources as well. My mind hadn’t been dwelling on him and I wasn’t going to start now unless I knew this was of God and not some inner unconsciousness of my own desires. To my mind it seemed unlikely; he was living quite a distance away and I never before received any attention from him. I kept all these things locked in my heart between God and I. No one else knew.

A month or so later while we workers were assembling a publication, one spoke directly to me and asked, “Did you know Mark Spinks is moving to Oklahoma City?” (That was 30 minutes away.)

I calmly answered, “No, I didn’t know.” But I immediately thought of the three dreams, as this was the young man in them. I did begin to wonder if the Lord indeed was working. But I continued to commit the matter to the Lord and quietly waited.

After Mark got moved and settled, he begin to come to the young people’s meeting we had on Friday night at a young married couple’s home. This went on for several weeks. Then a certain night, which I remember like yesterday, Mark drew me out in conversation as I was about to leave. He had broken his leg in playing softball and was sitting in a chair near the door. After a while I turned again to go, and he arose from his chair to go also. The man of the home then volunteered to carry Mark’s Bible to the car for him, it being rather hard to walk on crutches and carry anything! Mark said, “Well, I thought maybe Sister Elois would do that for me?” When we reached his car he asked if I would like to go eat at the Heritage House sometime.

I affirmed, very calmly, that I would, but inside I remember thinking, “This is actually happening!”

I believe it was at this point that I called my parents and told them, mentioning the dreams and how I had prayed. I knew they wanted God’s will to be done in my life and would be praying.

The planned evening arrived, and I was a little nervous. Being of a quiet nature, talking wasn’t easy for me. But somehow the Lord made this different. Visiting came easily and I enjoyed his company. However, when he took me home, he didn’t say he had enjoyed the evening or if he would call again. So I thought perhaps that was all there was to it. I committed it back to God. But in about a week or so I received a beautiful arrangement of spring flowers. The attached note read, “I never spent a more enjoyable evening.” I was so delighted I didn’t know what to do with myself! The first thing I did was fall on my knees and thank the Lord. It seemed the Lord was in the matter, but again I gave it back to God to block if it wasn’t His will.

There was an older sister who had often mentioned that she was praying for me. She had told me that she had waited for 10 years and the Lord had given her a jewel! I told her and asked for her continued prayers. She gave me her blessings and some advice which had been of help to her.

As the news got around to our large circle of friends, not everyone was pleased. It reached my ears that some thought it would never work, while another whispered to me that she thought it was wonderful. Some advised us to have a short courtship and others said to not be in a hurry! The one who was filling the place as pastor at our congregation told my parents they were glad to see us together. Yet another one called me on the phone and proceeded to say everything bad she could dream up about Mark. I kindly thanked her and said I would pray about it. After hanging up the phone I was just in tears. I knelt in prayer and poured out my troubles to the Lord. I again asked for a revelation of His will. I surely couldn’t go by people’s advice: there was no agreement. I cried unto the Lord for His direction. I promised to listen to Him and not to man. I had thought I was following His will, but I had to have more assurance. I opened my Bible and my eyes fell on, “fear not the rumor in the land.” I had not even known this verse existed! Surely God had opened it up at my hour of need. Thank the Lord! He is faithful to those who put their trust in Him. It is safe to trust God! “In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.”* (Proverbs 3:6)

The courting time is a getting acquainted time. A time to explore one another’s minds, goals, values and ideals. A time of continuing to “check out” whether this is indeed God’s plan for your life. If you are sensitive to the Lord, He will guide you by His Spirit. If you are about to make a mistake, He will cause you to feel uneasy about the steps you are taking. However, if all is well, you will be blessed and happy.

Mark enjoyed reading to me in some of our times together. This piece of poetry seemed just for us:

“Even as rivulets twain, from distant and separate sources,
Seeing each other afar, as they leap from the rocks, and pursuing
Each one its devious path, but drawing nearer and nearer,
Rush together at last, at their trysting-place in the forest;
So these lives that had run thus far in separate channels,
Coming in sight of each other, then swerving and flowing asunder,
Parted by barriers strong, but drawing nearer and nearer,
Rushed together at last, and one was lost in the other.”

Now, 21 years later, we have enjoyed many books which drew out family conversations, thus communicating together and establishing values for our children. At that time I saw his love of reading and discussion from a key-hole view. Now I view the full bloom of the experience and the enrichment it has brought to us.

The night he asked me to be his and I answered “yes” took place on a moonlit June night among the tall Louisiana pines in his parents’ back yard. We had gone for a walk and upon returning sat down in a large swing, he on one end and I on the other. A kitten was roaming around playfully and a Chuck-Will’s-Widow was singing in the treetop! I believe the Lord arranged this romantic scene for us. I had long ago chosen not to read the “Christian” romance stories, for fear they would fill my mind and make the real experience seem uncolorful. The Lord rewarded me exceedingly! It surely pays to listen to those little “checks” the Lord gives. He wants to give us the very best! Why fill your mind with stories the world has to offer? Why be in a hurry to get married? Enjoy your young life, filling places of service for your Master. There may be some whom He designs to get married at a young age. But for the most part, I believe with some years and experience, you are better able to make a wise choice. It takes time for God to teach you His voice and how to find the mind of the Lord. Look to Him now about the little decisions of life. Don’t rush ahead with your own desires and wishes. Wait on Him. Pray for His direction in your schooling and areas of service. He will prepare you if you let Him.

You may say it is a scary thing to just let God choose. What if He chooses someone you don’t like, let alone love? Never fear. When God chooses, He also gives the love. Do not under any circumstances vow to love and cherish someone you don’t know if you love or not! Don’t be pushed into something. Some marriages have been arranged by a religious group for the advantage of the group with no consideration as to the love between the two. Our hearts ache for these dear couples. Parents should be praying for God to bring the right person into their child’s life at the right time, and be afraid to actually do the choosing.

As we continued in our courtship, my respect, admiration and love grew for Mark. I felt this was the man I could look across the table at for the rest of my life! This was the man I wanted to cook for and prepare the things he liked. I felt this was one whom I could submit to, “as it is fit in the Lord.”* (Colossians 3:18) How important is this love! You need it to carry you through the ups and downs of life. While Mark and I were going together, I remember telling a sister I felt sure this was the one to marry. She said, “hang on to that, you will need it.” When hard times do come to test your love, then we can go back to God, reminding yourself and ask His help to live with him as you should.

As is most usually the case, the man wants to get married as soon as possible and the woman says, “not so soon.” He wanted to get married in August and I thought it would be nice after his birthday in October. Finally we agreed on a September date.

We had been taught that our weddings should be plain and not an excessive show. I was much impressed by a chapter on Christian weddings in a little book, Keep Yourself Pure, Sister Marie Miles and Sister Stover passed out in the year of 1972 at the Monarch Springs camp meeting. We endeavored to carry it out with the best understanding we had. The following excerpt is a sample of its content:

You can easily draw the line between modest dignity and ostentation…. It will also help you to know what to do if you will plan everything to please your most honored Guest, the Lord Jesus Himself, who will surely come if you invite Him.

Remember, girls, the important thing is not how pretty a bride you will be, but how fine a wife. Your wedding clothes are not nearly as important as you who wear them. The wedding day is not an end in itself. Elaborate attire and excessive decorations over-emphasize the unimportant and draw the attention away from the spiritual meaning of a marriage ceremony in the Lord.

May God help us to plan weddings that are in keeping with Christ and His principles. It is the spirit of the world to veneer, to be artificial, and to glorify man rather than God. Let us not get caught in this worldly spirit in our weddings. Plan your weddings so that they are beautiful in their simplicity. Let them be experiences that Christ will honor with His presence, and ones that will bring dignity and honor to this sacred ordinance.

…Remember that the sacredness of the wedding hour is often lost and forgotten by the activities that follow the ceremony…. One thing that ought to be definitely ruled out is the after-wedding wild auto race with tin cans rattling and horns screaming. Not only are life and limb endangered, but worse still, the spiritual atmosphere of life’s most treasured scene is forever damaged. The new couple should be allowed to leave in peace, with the echo of their vows and the heartfelt good wishes of their friends lingering in their hearts.

[; Keep Yourself Pure]

I am so thankful to the Lord for the love and happiness He has given us. As the years change us, our love continues to grow richer and stronger. I am so glad we trusted God. We look forward to growing old together—walking hand in hand into the measure of time God sees fit to give us.

“What is love, anyhow?”…

“Why, hit’s—hit’s—jest a caring fer somebody more’n fer ary one else in th’ whole world…. Hit’s a goin’ t’ live with somebody an’ a lettin’ him take care o’ you, ’stead o’ your folks…. An’ hit’s a cookin’ an’ a scrubbin’ an’ a mendin’ fer him, an’—an’—sometimes hit’s a splittin’ wood, an’ a doin’ chores, too….”

“It’s a heap more’n that; it’s a nursin’ babies, and a takin’ care of ’em till they’re growed up, and then when they’re big enough to take care o’ themselves, and you’re old… it’s a lookin’ back over it all, and bein’ glad you done married the man you did. It’s a heap more’n livin’ with a man… it’s a doin’ all that, without ever once wishin’ he was somebody else.”

[Harold B. Wright; The Shepherd of the Hills, “What Is Love?”]

Editorial

About Dear Princess

Dear Princess is a section of the publication, Foundation Truth. My purpose in publishing is to encourage those who are serious in living dedicated lives to the Lord. I aim to address girls from ages 15 to 25, but many others may enjoy it also.

I, Abigail Spinks, am laboring as editress, although Skye Erickson is no longer co-worker in this role. I am trusting God to accomplish His purpose in this work and greatly appreciate your prayers.

On Writing and Contributions

“The LORD hath done great things for us, whereof we are glad.”* (Psalm 126:3) Has the Lord done anything for you? We would be so encouraged to hear about it! Whether you have found any helpful tips or hints in learning a skill, or the Lord has been teaching you a lesson, given you help or answered prayer, please feel free to share. In this way you can encourage, challenge, and strengthen others in the right, for we are called to “consider one another to provoke [stir up, spur] unto love and good works.”* (Hebrews 10:24)

If you are feeling like you have nothing to share, please search your heart and find why. As daughters of the King, our hearts should be full of His praises and lips ready to tell of His goodness. If that is not the case, we should find out what ails us. Don’t be cheated out of the blessing of sharing what the Lord has done for you or is teaching you! Do not let the devil tell you it is boastful or prideful to write and share what God has taught you—you are only glorifying the Teacher, which we are commanded to do.

We would greatly appreciate hearing from mothers, grandmothers, older sisters—we have much to learn from you. Please do write and share what experience in the Narrow Way has taught you (Titus 2:3-5).

For those of you who have written; thank you all for your letters! They are a great source of encouragement to us. For as “iron sharpeth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend.”* (Proverbs 27:17) Your comments, concerns and suggestions are welcome, so please write in if you have any. Keep in mind that we consider your letters for printing; therefore please state in your letter if you wish it not to be printed or if you prefer to remain anonymous, etc.

Dropping a Note

Dear Princess is back! So many of you have asked if we would publish again the magazine, Dear Princess, for girls, as before. After much prayer, I have felt that I could change the name back, but should still be a section of Foundation Truth. Mailing is expensive and we cannot justify the cost of a separate magazine. However, I’d like to have as much of the old Dear Princess as I can—including adding a couple of columns we had dropped—“Meet a Princess” and “The Fruit of Her Hands.” Although “Meet a Princess” will, Lord-willing, be resumed next issue, I have nothing on hand for the “Fruit of Her Hands” column…. I was wondering if you might have fall recipes you could share for the next issue. I’d like to focus on quick breads, rolls, muffins and scones—and I’m sure you have some wonderful recipes. Do send any tips or quotes you might have to go with your recipe! We’ll be looking forward to the mail!

Also, we have another question for you: Are you reading the continuing story, Princess in Calico? We have received very little feedback and as we have such limited space we want to print only that which encourages and blesses. I love the book, but I’d like to get your opinion… anyway, until you write, I am using the space in other ways….

May God bless each one of you dear sisters. Don’t forget to drop me a note, please…. If you are blessed and have been inspired, given an insight by the Lord—we can’t know until you tell us! And the encouragement of reading a good testimony is beyond words. It is really uplifting—thank you to everyone who has helped in this way.

In the Service of the Master,
Abigail

God’s Will—It Is the Best!

Angela LeFevre

Questions filled my mind. How was I going to know what God had for my future? Was I supposed to go to college, or was I supposed to stay home? How was I going to know the answer? Does God really care what I do if it is a good thing and if it is something that I want to do?

I would like to share with you the work God has done in my heart this past year as I have sought the Lord about whether His will for me was to go to college next year or to stay here.

God is so perfect and His answers and the way He works are always so awesome and personal! “As for God, his way is perfect; the word of the LORD is tried: he is a buckler to all them that trust in him.”* (2 Samuel 22:31)

In June of 2000 a desire was sparked in me to attend a Bible college that had a ministry training program for young adults. When I first heard about the program I jumped at the idea, because it was different from other colleges seeing that the learning wasn’t only “book work,” but hands on learning and training, also.

I had a couple of friends that attended there and they had everything good to say about it and they came home very dedicated and on fire for the Lord and His work.

My parents seemed interested in the school also and we prayed about it but really didn’t get a concrete answer. The program started in August and we couldn’t get a peace about starting so soon. It didn’t seem like adequate timing to prepare physically as well as spiritually, but we kept praying. We then discovered through some pamphlets that I had acquired that I could also enter the program in the month of January. My parents talked it over and agreed that it seemed like God’s timing. They told me to call the college and try to get some more information before we made a final answer. I was so excited! This really seemed so right. I was relieved that I finally had an answer! I called the college the next day and after several tries I finally got a hold of the ministry director.

He asked me several questions and I shared my heart with him and asked him about enrolling in January. I’m afraid that I wasn’t quite prepared for the answer that he gave to me. “Well, actually,” he said, “we are no longer accepting students in January.” My heart sank. He went on to explain to me why and encouraged me to wait until next August. He said it would give me time to seek God about if this was what He wanted for me, and it would give me time to prepare my heart and time to save up money.

I got off the phone and had a good cry. I was having a hard time understanding what God was doing. Now I had to wait a whole year! Time passed. The Lord blessed me with several odd jobs and I was keeping pretty busy. I still felt like the Lord would have me to go, it would just have to be in His timing. I would wait and work and trust The Lord to prepare me.

In the meantime my older brother started to attend this college. I was so pleased that we would be there together! This did make it harder to wait though, knowing that he was there and I was here! I struggled with “letting go” and being willing to be told no if the Lord didn’t want me to go. I had many people give me their opinions and tell me how I need to get out there, so I really had to stay focused on the Lord. I can honestly say that I didn’t do too well at that sometimes!

I hung on to something that a visiting pastor from India told me as we were discussing what I was going to do with my life. I told him I really wasn’t sure, I just wanted to do what God wanted. He said, “When God speaks, you will know. There won’t be any confusion or questions in His answer.” This was very encouraging to me. I had the confidence that when God did speak I would be sure.

It wasn’t until a few months ago that my parents began urging me to seek God’s best for my life and what His answer was for me. They told me that I needed an answer for myself soon and they also desired to know so they would know how to help direct me.

Little did I know that they already had both heard separately from God what I was to do, but really wanted me to hear from God myself.

I had casually been seeking all along, but I was of the opinion that I was supposed to go, so I wasn’t really seeking an answer, I was just trying to remain open if He said no.

So, I started earnestly seeking. After some time, though, it seemed that the more I sought the more discouraged I became. “Why wasn’t the Lord answering me?”

The Lord had spoken to me through many scriptures that encouraged me to wait on the Lord, to be still and trust the Lord that He heard my prayers and would answer my prayers in His perfect timing.

“Wait on the LORD: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the LORD.”* (Psalm 27:14)

“Be still, and know that I am God.”* (Psalm 46:10)

“And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.”* (Matthew 21:22)

“For everyone that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.”* (Matthew 7:8)

I was thankful for the encouragement from the scriptures and they really gave me the strength to wait for the Lord’s answer, but it still was not the answer!

One evening last month I plopped on the couch beside Mom and Dad. I was very discouraged and weary of seeking. I had come to the end of my rope and didn’t know what else to do. I shared my frustration with Mom and Dad, and as the Lord led they shared their hearts with me. I couldn’t believe how God worked in my heart at that time. He clearly spoke to my heart that He would have me stay here! It was hard to let go of my dream and desires, but there was such a peace in knowing that God had spoken.

After I shared with them what God had shown me Mom shared with me the next day what God had shown both her and Daddy. The Lord continued to show me things and confirm His answer. He couldn’t have made it any clearer to me. Our Lord is so awesome! He had the answer for me even before I asked. He knew that I wasn’t ready to hear His answer, though. I still was holding on to my will. I thought I had let it go, but I was still holding tight. It wasn’t till I was broken and ready to receive whatever He had for me regardless of whether I liked the answer or not that He spoke. He loved me enough to wait till my heart was ready. Our Lord is so good to us and He loves us so much more than we know. Even when we don’t receive an answer right away, remember that our Father hears our prayers and is “working behind the scenes.” This article is not meant to put down college or future education. God is so big and He has different purposes and plans for each one of His children. My purpose for writing is to encourage each one of you to seek the Lord and find His perfect will for your life. His answers may not always be to our liking but I encourage you to follow His leading even when it is not comfortable. We will experience peace, joy and many blessings when we follow His will for our lives! He has the answers for each one of us and as you seek you will find. I encourage you to find not the “good” things God has for you, but rather find His “best” for your life. God’s will is the Best!

Angie LeFevre
Eagar, AZ

“Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, unto him be the glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end.”* (Ephesians 3:20)

---

Dear Readers,

I was blessed by Angie’s article and having had the privilege to hear her story first hand in phone conversation, I hope she won’t mind me sharing a little bit more and my thoughts as well. One thing that I was blessed with in hearing Angie’s story was the absolute commitment to know God’s will—even if it took awhile. Over a period of months Angie and I have discussed the possibility of her going to college, talked about the pros and cons. I’ve prayed for her as I’ve watched her struggle to find God’s will, and I can readily testify that this knowledge did not come easily. The path was not clear, and Angie would sway—she’d want to go, but also want to do what was only God’s will. It was not an easy decision. Major decisions should never be arrived at casually, and to find the mind of the Lord, it takes diligent work and a lot of want-to. A whole lot of want-to. But this is so important, my friends! Let’s ask God to help us to get more earnest about seeking God’s will for our lives.

An acquaintance once told me that her life was going smoothly—God just dropped opportunities into her lap—concerning jobs, education, etc. She didn’t have to consecrate or wonder what was God’s will—everything she wanted just came along. It reminded me of a quote I’d read: “The surest, quickest way to hell is the quiet one. No sign posts of danger, just gentle slopes and slightly downward roads leading slowly, but surely to a wretched end.” Just sliding along, doing what comes our way is not good enough. We can never skate into heaven. It takes seeking, climbing, striving to find what God has and get His best. You may live a shallow life, just slipping and sliding around, not doing anything bad—many people do that. But if you’re going to make it to heaven, and accomplish the purpose God put you here for, you will have to do some real work and searching.

It is not the popular thing to do. Many will think you take life too seriously. Many are willing to take what comes and not battle for God’s way. They’ll think you strange and proud. They may plead with you to change your mind. In a phone conversation about this topic, Angie shared that some of her friends said, “Why? We wanted you to come so much! Couldn’t you just come anyway? It won’t be bad for you.” She related that she had replied, “No, I don’t want to take that detour from God’s will. I want His best—why would I want to stray from His perfect path for even a day?” Do you have this commitment? You will need it. What are you? A slipper and slider? Or are you one who is standing on the solid rock, determined only to follow God? Make your choice. It is yours alone.

Loving concern,
Abigail

Getting Out of the Arm Chair

Precious Sisters,

Thank you, first of all, to all who make this magazine possible. What a blessing to see other young ladies who are also “marching to the beat of a different drum” and pressing on with joy in the Christian life. The Lord has done so very much for me. I thought I would write and share a little of His great mercies in my life.

Glory, I am saved! It brings a thrill to my soul. There is no deeper, richer, fuller life than being a Christian. Amen! Hot tears well up in my eyes as I think of His lovingkindness in my life. Truly God has blessed me with so much godly teaching and training. I pause. Could it be because I am raised with so many blessed opportunities that He expects from me more than a half-way, wishy-wishy, hit-miss commitment to Him? Could it be that, you and I who have received teaching on the normal Christian life as young people, have the privilege of living a totally dedicated life to God? Could it be?! Yes, it could be! And it is so, hallelujah! Let us rejoice in our Father in Heaven, girls, and run strong after Him in our youthful days. It excites me to think of what He has in store for each of us.

Praise God, the Christian life does not end at just being saved. It is just the beginning! And what an adventure the Christian life is! Right now I am in the middle of learning many lessons from God. I am in a school with God as my teacher. The biggest lesson the Lord has been patiently teaching me can be summed up in one word: others.

It is a pitiful life to be wrapped up in me, me, me. What an abundant life it is to live for others, to bleed for others, to cry for others, to die for others! There are many opportunities all around us to minister to the needs of others, if we would just open the eyes of our hearts. There are so many hurting people in the world! Let us show them Jesus in our kind words and loving deeds.

Christ bled for others. Do I bleed for others? Not the final shedding of literal blood which leads to death, but the bleeding for lost souls and lukewarm Christians around us every day. The Gospel for the broken-hearted is made possible by bleeding hearts. Christ bled, but how many of us have even shed a single salty tear for one who is falling away from the faith or has never even heard of the Good News? “St. Catherine’s prayers were red with sacrifice, and she felt the touch of the pierced Hands.” Are my prayers red with sacrifice? “We must bleed, if we would be ministers of the Saving Blood.”

A preacher once paraphrased a few verses in 1 John like this, “Beloved, let us live for others: for living for others is of God; and everyone that lives for others is born of God, and knoweth God. He that lives not for others knoweth not God: for God lives for others.” It made a huge impact on me. Love is living for others! It is laying down my plans, wishes, and rights for others. God is our perfect example in this. Oh, let us exalt Him!

My desire is to be some fatty meat on the word “love.” What rich blessings there are in living for others. It isn’t always easy, but there is joy in obeying God, doing His work. Just the other day, I was tested on my commitment to live for others. I moaned as I began to see what I was expected to do. It was not in my comfort zones. The Lord taught me an important lesson that day. If I desire to follow Him, I cannot expect to stay in my little sphere of comfort. My comfort zones must be broken if I am to live for other people. It requires a lot more than a sedate “arm chair trust.” It is a reckless abandon to God, knowing He will move and work as He sees fit.

Here is a poem which has ministered to my heart as I am continually taken out of my snug and secure life… for others:

Trust

Though the rain may fall and the wind be blowing,
And cold and chill is the wintry blast;
Though the cloudy sky is still cloudier growing,
And dead leaves tell that the summer has passed,
Yet my face I hold to the stormy heaven,
My heart as calm as a summer sea;
I am glad to receive what my God hath given,
Whate’er it be.

When I feel the cold, I can say, “He sends it,”
His wind blows blessing I surely know;
For I’ve ne’er a want but that He attends it;
My heart beats warm, though the winds may blow;
The soft, sweet summer was warm and glowing,
So bright were the blossoms on every bough;
I trusted Him when the roses were blowing—
I trust Him now.

Oh, small were my faith should it weakly falter,
When now the roses have ceased to blow;
And frail were the trust that now should alter,
To doubt His love when the storm clouds grow;
If I trust Him once I must trust Him ever—
His way is best, though I stand or fall;
Through wind or storm He will leave me never,
For He sends all.

Yes, God has done so very much for me. It is so sweet to trust in Him with my whole life. He will never leave us nor forsake us. May He bless you all, sisters, as you trust Him without reserve and serve others in a self-forgetful way. Amen.

His Servant,
Lauren Elizabeth Mong
Kingwood, WV

Have you a Friend whose wondrous grace
Lights up with joy the darkest place,
Who to the end will still prove true?

“Tell What the Lord Has Done for You!”*

Oh, tell what He’s done for you,
Of His love, so strong and true,
Oh, tell, what He’s done, what He’s done for you,
Others may need Him, too.

---

Dear Abigail,

Just a note to say thank you very much for sending that whole songbook to me! It was a very pleasant surprise. I was really puzzled at first as to why a songbook was being sent to me. But thank you so much! It is rather unexpected to receive a songbook when one has only asked for a few copies of music but thanks very much. I’ve been looking through it and most of the songs I don’t know because my church doesn’t use this songbook, but I really look forward to learning some new songs, and being able to put a tune to the very meaningful words.

Of course, I don’t mind at the way it looks! I had some book binding tape and put that on the spine so I think the songbook is going to last me a few years more. Or it might not, considering the fact that so many of us in my family love to play the piano and sing hymns. It will be handled and used quite a lot, I think. There are four of us girls in my family, aged 13, 15, 17, and 19, and all of us are excited about this and they all send their love and says thanks a lot for sending it all the way here! To mention a little about Foundation Truth, before I end here, I really enjoy it a lot, especially the Maidens of Virtue and Honor section. Princess in Calico is really nice and I look forward to it’s continuation in each issue. I really appreciate the discussion on make-up and jewelry. Because it has been my family and church’s conviction not to wear any make-up/jewelry, I have never done so in my life and have taken it just a thing I don’t do; but it has been good to realize anew the reason behind each conviction I have, and to read about other girls’ similar convictions and their reasons and basis behind that. I also find the articles by C. E. Orr that have been printed, very edifying.

I guess I’m running out of space here. Thank you very much once again for the songbook!

Love,
Georgia
Republic of Singapore

---

Dear Georgia,

Thank you for your sweet letter—we’re glad the songbook was an encouragement to you! It is important, as you mentioned, that we do indeed know our convictions from God. Having a family conviction or what the church teaches is not enough—we must know first-hand straight from God for ourselves! To be sure, isn’t it wonderful that we have a very willing teacher? God give us courage and grace to keep seeking Him who has all the answers.

Love in Christ,
Abigail

---

Dear Abigail,

Many greetings in the name of our precious Lord, Jesus Christ! It was with great interest and suspense I read your article on courtship, etc. I was much intrigued and pleased with your conclusion. Since we left ——, I had not given those things much thought any more. It sickened me so much to think of how much we had played God, thinking we needed to control every aspect of everybody’s life, that the thought of putting God or anything or anybody else in a box becomes more distasteful to me every day. Your conclusion on this extremely important subject was like a breath of fresh air to me. Truly it is this simplicity in Christ that we need to return to, not just in this but in every area of life. This is the very simple truth God has been working to help me to see and understand this last year. It’s very humbling, freeing-up, and exciting to begin to understand that we can safely rest, blindly trusting in the mighty arms of Jesus. I read of a quote by Abe Lincoln: “I have been driven many times to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go.” It’s very precious to me to have this conviction also. And I believe that’s where God wants to have us, and He brings circumstances about that will bring us to that place not just with head-knowledge, but in truth and reality.

I have heard so many people talk about trusting God, keeping our focus on Christ, etc., but in reality are doing differently. Which brings me to the conclusion that perhaps this is going to be one of, if not the greatest challenge we are faced with in our life: to keep Christ our focus, in spirit and in truth. It’s so easy to get focused on other seemingly legitimate things. I appreciate the mercy of God in taking me through His school, where He’s teaching me blind faith, day by day. Trusting Him to bring our children through safely, not caring what tomorrow may bring and trying to figure out how we’ll handle this or that, but knowing that He’ll give direction every step of the way. Hallelujah, what a Savior! How safe for you young people! Pray for us, that we’d know how to trust and lean on Him only, and to wait even when the waiting is wearying. Be encouraged as you work for God. I trust that your article is an encouragement to many a hungry and weary soul.

It was so good to meet and get to know you and your family. May God bless and encourage you all richly. Many sincere greetings in Christ to your parents and sister also.

Your sister in Christ,
Mrs. Cornelia Kauenhowen
Manitoba, Canada

---

Hello Maidens of Virtue and Honor,

My Name is Sarah Lis (Elisabeth) McWhorter. I am 13 and have a big family. I have 3 brothers and 4 sisters. I live in Salem, Oregon….

I am thankful for what the Lord has done for me. He has called me to be a missionary…. I have taken a special interest in Japan and I want to learn the Japanese language for my high-school credit. Every day I am learning more about Jesus. I think my favorite book (beside the Bible) is Hinds’ Feet on High Places by Hannah Hurnard. It has taught me many things. I am thankful for the way the Lord has helped me, answered my prayers and I am also thankful for what He is going to do. I have appreciated this magazine and I hope to see you all in heaven!

Sarah McWhorter

The Difference

Grace L. Naessens

I got up early one morning
And rushed right into the day;
I had so much to accomplish
That I didn’t have time to pray.

Problems just tumbled about me
And heavier came each task
“Why doesn’t God help?” I wondered.
He answered, “You didn’t ask.”

I wanted to see the joy and beauty,
But the day toiled on gray and bleak;
I wondered why God didn’t show me.
He said, “But you didn’t seek.”

I tried to come into God’s presence,
I used all my keys at the lock.
God gently and lovingly chided,
“My child, you didn’t knock.”

I woke up early one morning,
And paused before entering the day;
I had so much to accomplish,
I had to take time to pray.

A Chat Between Two Friends

---

jewelsmaria: Now I just got done reading an article/letter from Abigail Spinks about make-up.

circlefriends: Just out of curiosity (and speaking of make-up) are you the type of HopeChest reader who wears skirts and headcoverings, or are you the type that wears a modest amount of make-up and blue jeans?

c: What did she say?

j: I didn’t agree with it.

c: I wear make-up, too, and blue jeans.

j: Same here.

c: I don’t agree with her on most things.

j: Yeah, I wear a modest amount of make-up.

j: I know…. I’m sorry, but it almost is too cultish. If you know what I mean….

c: I have her latest issue of Foundation Truth… but I haven’t read it!

j: That is what I read. It is in the back of the magazine. Tell me what you think when you read it.

j: It is not what is on the outside, but what is on the inside.

c: Exactly!

c: Okay, I went and got the issue.

j: Maybe I took it wrong, but it seemed that she was basically saying that if you wear make-up and jeans and don’t wear head-coverings that you aren’t really a Christian.

c: Wow! What’s the name of the article?

j: It is on the second last page, I think. She seemed a bit condemning.

c: It is!

j: Which is sad.

c: I’m reading it now! It is sad… and I’m still in the first paragraph! I’ll finish reading and tell you what I think….

c: Whoa! It does seem cultish!

j: Yeah. I couldn’t hardly read it.

c: I know… me either.

j: I feel so bad for how many girls will be reading that and believing that.

c: Me, too… it seems to encourage the fact that God is pleased when we are plain. The goal is not to look holy—the goal is to be holy.

j: That seems like Pharisee. I don’t mean to come down hard on her. But where does it say in the Bible “Ladies must wear dresses, and you must wear no make-up”?

c: Nowhere!

j: Exactly.

c: It says to make pure your heart and to be Christlike.

j: And the word modest means? To not stick out. Well when you are wearing dresses, no make-up and no jewelry… you stick out….

c: And I believe that God does not look down on jewelry or make-up as a hindrance to knowing Him. That would be the only reason not to, and it doesn’t! Wow—it really is like showing off because you do stick out! Good point!

j: Yeah. Exactly.

c: I totally agree with you.

j: Well God doesn’t want you to look ugly. Just like you (not you, but you know what I mean) want yourself to look nice for them. That doesn’t mean gaudy.

c: Exactly. Wow, you and I are really like-minded on this subject.

j: And then what guy/girl off the street would want to be a Christian if he had to change all these areas?

c: No one. I wouldn’t have before I was a Christian.

j: It is enough giving up our worldly pleasures (such as drinking, smoking, chewing, sleeping around, etc.) let alone how we dress, etc. I mean, to them….

c: They mentioned something in that article about loud colors—I was just thinking of the Proverbs 31 woman—she makes clothing of scarlet and wears purple. Isn’t that loud? I don’t think there’s anything wrong with bright red or purple clothes.

j: Yeah. Purple means royalty. And that is what the kings wear, so she is honored and quite beautiful. I mean, another example is Queen Esther.

c: Yes—she went through two years of beauty treatments!

j: And what guy would want to marry an ugly-looking girl?

c: No guy would unless he was crazy.

j: Make-up is to enhance your appearance, not to make you look like somebody else, you know?!

c: Yes!

j: Of course, I don’t think that you should be possessed with your appearance.

c: Of course.

j: I really don’t see where she is coming from. I tried the whole time, while I was reading the article and I couldn’t.

c: Abigail? Yeah—it seems to be without foundation. (LOL, no pun intended!!)

j: She used the scripture out of context. Well I am glad we both agree on this topic!

c: Me too. Well, unfortunately, I have to go!

---

Dear Angela and Julia,

When I first read your chat, I wanted to write back and explain more fully why I believe what I do about modest dress. I wanted to point out the scriptures, share with you the blessings and why God made it the way He did. I wanted to correct the misunderstandings y’all read in the article I wrote. But after prayer, and much waiting, I’ve realized that without an open mind and heart from all parties involved there is no way we can discuss this to any profit. I am sorry this is true.

You are believing what seems good to you; to be beautiful outwardly so you can be a good “witness,” to attract a husband, etc. This seems reasonable to human thinking. But what does God say? “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways.”* (Isaiah 55:8-9) What seems good and right and reasonable to us is not always correct. Likewise, if we, in our own understanding, try to interpret the Word of God, His Word will seem strange to us. No wonder Paul counseled Timothy to rightly divide the Word of truth, being “a workman that needeth not to be ashamed.”* (2 Timothy 2:15) If we do not have the spirit of God to help us, we will easily misconstrue the meaning of the Bible.

Also, it is important to really want to know what is truth, and obey God’s commands whatever the cost. God does not reveal His truth to those who half-heartedly seek. God will let us settle for less and be in error if we want. However, if we are truly hungry and will obey no matter what may hinder, He is faithful to shine His light upon us. But we must dig first and show our sincerity. I guess what I’m saying, dear girls, is: have you really looked? Have you truly searched? Have you gotten down on your knees and said, “Lord, I’m going to find out what Your Word teaches regardless of my personal feelings or preferences or what seems right on the surface”? Or are you really saying, “I’ve given up enough of my worldly pleasures—this is it. I’m not going to look strange for Jesus”? You likened modesty to not sticking out. Dear girls, is this really what the Bible teaches? I beg you to look further. I’m not interested in you matching up to my beliefs—but is this truly what Jesus taught? Suppose you’re in a group where they’re smoking—you stick out because you’re not; does the Bible then give you liberty to smoke? Would it be “modest” to smoke or drink or gamble if you’re in that kind of company? I pray that you would consider this subject more fully.

I guess I could write point for point the things you mentioned, but I feel it would do little good to get into verbal ping pong. I only want to mention a couple more things here to clear up:

1. You mentioned that we said that unless you wore headcoverings you weren’t a Christian. This was a most surprising statement since we ourselves don’t even wear the external cloth headcoverings you were referring to. We believe in long hair and in putting it up responsibly.

2. Again, to set the record straight, we don’t recall having written anything about not wearing bright reds or purples. Personally, I don’t feel comfortable in bright red—I do feel it definitely makes me stick out! I have nothing against purple and cannot find any where in the Bible that teaches against wearing any specific color.

Before I close, I’d like to mention that I don’t dress modestly because I feel I “must”—I don’t wear dresses because I feel the Bible teaches it and I’ll be damned otherwise. I do it out of love to Christ (“All Thy mandates love betoken…. ’Tis delightful to obey”*), and what could seem a duty or bondage, is nothing but a love cord that binds me close to Jesus.

I recall to my remembrance an occasion when I was a child. I was standing in a department store and gazing at a counter of beautiful jewelry. Diamonds sparkled, rubies shone, gold necklaces lay delicately upon velvet pouches. To my eyes it was the most beautiful sight a beauty-loving girl could see. There was nothing I wanted more than to adorn myself, but it was out of the question, as my parents would never have allowed it. I didn’t ask out loud, but my heart certainly wanted it on the inside! I remembering thinking, “When I am grown, I will be beautiful. I will wear all the jewelry and make-up I want.” As I grew older, the desire for vanity grew as well. And then Christ got a hold of my heart, and I yielded to His call. Living with Jesus gave me a different perspective; the jewels lost their glamor. What looked so lovely before, looked empty now. I lost my taste for the world. I didn’t care if they thought I was beautiful or ugly. It didn’t matter. Out of love for Christ, I gave up all ambitions of adorning myself outwardly, and found the sacrifice small in comparison to what He gave me. It wasn’t something “big” I gave up, but incredibly small. Christ died for me—how could I not give whatever He asked? If you were in love with someone, would you not go the extra mile to please them? Nothing, it seems, is too hard or too much to do for the person when you’re in love with them. Sacrificing your time or money or desires seems almost a pleasure knowing they are gratified. Are you in love with Jesus, dear girls?

In closing, I just want to say I’m praying for you both. I hope this has cleared up a few things and also answered some of your questions. If you have any more, I’d be glad to answer them. God bless you.

Love in Christ,
Abigail Spinks