Thinking today about Corrie ten Boom’s famous quote about embroidery–how we see one side, but God the other:
“Although the threads of my life have often seemed knotted, I know, by faith, that on the other side of the embroidery there is a crown.” – (Corrie Ten Boom in My Heart Sings)
If you would like to see the actual embroidery she was referring to, you can go here.
Watch the honest and faith-filled sharing of the wives of the five missionaries who were killed by the Aucas in 1956: Women of Faith.
And here’s the story:
Many people thought it was a tragic waste of a life when Jim Elliot and the other four missionaries died trying to contact the unreached Aucas.
Yet, how many Christians would risk their life for an opportunity to share the gospel? Jim Elliot, a young modern martyr, gave what he could not keep and gained what he could not lose.
A ‘missions’ statistic that profoundly challenged Jim was, “There is one Christian worker for every 50,000 people in foreign lands, while there is one to every 500 in the United States.” Early in 1952, Jim Elliot sailed for Ecuador. The plan was to locate in an old oil station that was abandoned because it was considered too dangerous for oil personnel. It was close to the Auca tribe and had a small airstrip. In February 1953, Jim and Elisabeth met in Quito and then on October 8, 1953 they were married. Their daughter, Valerie, was born two years later. Jim and Elisabeth worked together in translating the New Testament into the Quechua Indian language at the new mission station. The Aucas were a violent and murderous tribe and had never had any contact with the outside world. Jim wanted to bring the gospel there so he started a plan which was called Operation Auca. Besides him and his wife, his team consisted of five more missionary couples.
The men discovered the first Auca huts with the help of a missionary jungle pilot, Nate Saint. The first attempt to contact them was by airplane. They would fly around the camp shouting friendship words in the Auca language through a loud speaker and dropping down gifts in a basket. Encouraged by this progress, after three to four months of gift dropping, they decided to make a base on the Curray River, ‘Palm Beach’. After they had set up shelter they eventually made contact with the Aucas. After a little persuasion, they were able to convince some to come into their camp. Encouraged by this visit, the men felt that it was time to go in and try to minister to them.
One morning, after numerous songs of praise and considerable prayer, the men radioed their wives saying that they were going to go into the village and would radio them again later. ‘Operation Auca’ was under way. The next day, a group of twenty or thirty Aucas went to Palm Beach. “Guys, the Aucas are coming!” As soon as the others heard that, they flew into action straightening up their camp. Little did these five men know that this would be their last few hours of life. The last radio contact they made was Jim calling his wife saying, “We’ll call you back in three hours.” Jim Elliot’s body was found down stream with three others. Their bodies had been brutally pierced with spears and hacked by machetes.
After Jim’s death, Elisabeth, her daughter and another of the missionaries sister, Rachel, moved to work with the Auca Indians. The love of Christ shown through their forgiveness allowed them to have amazing success with the once murderous Indians. Jim’s life was not a waste, in fact, God used his death to bring life through salvation to many Aucas and encouragement and inspiration to thousands of believers worldwide.
(http://www.historymakers.info/inspirational-christians/jim-elliot.html)
Catherine Doherty writes about the love that finds us in the darkness:
Through faith we are able to turn our faces to God and meet his gaze. Each day becomes more and more luminous. The veil between God and man becomes less and less until it seems as if we can almost reach out and touch God.
Faith is a pulsating thing; a light, a sun that nothing can dim if it exists in the hearts of men. That’s why it’s so beautiful. God gives it to me saying, “I love you. Do you love me back? Come and follow me in the darkness. I want to know if you are ready to go into the things that you do not see yet, on faith alone.”
Then you look at God, or at what you think is God in your mind, and you say, “Look, this is fine, but you’re inviting me to what? An emptiness? A nothingness? There is nothing to see. I cannot touch you. I cannot feel you.” Then God goes on to say, “I invite you to a relationship of love: your love of me, my love of you.” Yes, God comes to us as an invitation to love. . . .
At this moment love surges in our heart like a tremendous sea that takes us in and lays us in the arms of God whom we haven’t seen but in whom we believe. Across the waves we hear, “Blessed are they who have not seen and yet believe” (John 20.29). Now I walk in the darkness of faith and I see. I see more clearly than is possible with my fleshly eyes.
(Catherine Doherty, Re-entry into Faith: “Courage–be not afraid!”)
Benedict XVI is giving a series of teachings on the Creed. Here is a teaser from his first one:
Faith leads Abraham to tread a paradoxical path. He will be blessed, but without the visible signs of blessing: he receives the promise to become a great nation, but with a life marked by the barrenness of his wife Sarah; he is brought to a new homeland but he will have to live there as a foreigner, and the only possession of the land that will be granted him will be that of a plot to bury Sarah (cf. Gen23:1-20). Abraham was blessed because, in faith, he knows how to discern the divine blessing by going beyond appearances, trusting in God’s presence even when his ways seem mysterious to him.
A lot to think about there. If you’d like to read his whole address, you can go here.
This is such an astounding story–a great one for the Year of Faith:
On July 3, Robert Shelby wanted to show one of his children how to avoid belly-flops when diving. When Shelby demonstrated at a neighbor’s pool, he slammed his head on the bottom.
He tried to swim. He couldn’t.
“None of my body is moving,” he said. “So, I go through my feet, my toes, my legs and knees, go through my arms. I’m trying every single part of my body that I thought might get me there, tried dog paddling, but I’m absolutely paralyzed. There’s nothing moving.”
He could hear his children playing, apparently oblivious to his plight. Holding his breath, he realized they might not notice until it was too late, and he would drown.
About 10 years earlier, Shelby had become a Christian. In addition to his full-time job in industrial sales, Shelby is a pastor at Trinity Baptist Church in Baton Rouge. Suspended between the surface and the bottom of the pool, Shelby pondered how to handle his last moments on Earth.
“I prayed just a moment about it, and what came to me was that (since) I praised God for the last 10 years of my life, I should praise him now,” Shelby said. “So, I began praising him for his grace, for saving me, sending his son, those type things, praising him for the privilege of raising up a family and ministering to people. I prayed that he would watch over my family and provide for them.”
As he prayed, Shelby blacked out. When he regained consciousness, his life was radically altered.
You can read the rest here: “An Unparalyzed Faith”
A Sunday-poem by Fr. David May from Madonna House for the beginning of this Year of Faith:
by Fr. David May.
It was (and is) like this:
That tortuous, tortured place,
Fleeing, like a tremulous little bird,
Flitting between hiding places,
Creature of shadows
Never in full light,
Yet giving away its presence
In fluttering wings and piercing
Song of evening…
That closed and stone-hard place,
Impenetrable, hard as hawk’s eyes,
Gleaming, piercing summer’s noon
With cold, unyielding stare,
Hunter driven by hunger…
Cauldron of bitter schemes,
Witch’s brew angry and troubled,
Seething even in quiet,
Secretly boiling, overflowing
Pain of nothingness and loving it…
That place—my heart—embraced by You.
No word, no admonition,
No judgment, no mountain storm
Of lightning, wind, thunder,
Slide of rocks, mud, trees,
Not even a gentle breeze or whisper of air,
But only strength of stillness
Laying irrevocable claim,
As if mining for gold
Buried in black-night earth,
Seeing treasure where none is,
Digging with bloodied hands
Till the mask is cast off—
Awakening love, reaching out
Like a reed crushed then mended,
Believing in the One believing in me,
Creature from his hands.
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An article by Catherine Doherty from Madonna House on faith–faith in the God who loves us no matter what. Be encouraged!
by Catherine Doherty.
When I was a young wife in Petrograd, the city was in chaos when the communists took over. My husband Boris and I were sleeping on the floor after everything was taken away from us.
I said to him, “Boris, I am afraid.” He yawned and said, “Why? You are a Christian.”
That was a pretty good answer, and I never forgot it. If I am a Christian, can I give way to hopelessness? No. The resurrected Christ is in our midst.
What we have to battle in this day and age is our own hopelessness. Many people are depressed. They are depressed by their image of themselves.
Well, the picture they see in the mirror is false. Then, on top of this depression and in it and over it comes a terrible loneliness.
The answer to it is so utterly simple. The answer is faith. A very small word, but one of such immense power that it can lift you to the very feet of God. Faith in who you are as a child of God, faith in what you stand for, faith in where you are going.
These days, who of us doesn’t need faith, love, peace, compassion, understanding? So many of us cannot escape the fears that bay at us like a pack of wolves at our heels.
And so many of these fears are nonsensical. Let us stop listening to them.
We don’t have to worry about our sinfulness. We just need to go to confession. And forget all that nonsense about being ugly and unlovable. Throw yourself into the arms of God who incarnated himself to become like you and me.
You can read the rest here.
Witnesses to Hope 