Disappointment

"It is through many tribulations that we shall enter the kingdom of God (Acts 14:22). God has intended that it will never be any other way. You yourself may currently [like Nehemiah and Wm. Carey] need to pick yourself up and go back into battle for him. Twice in 2 Corinthians 4, Paul comments that 'we do not lose heart'. How was he sustained? Paul reminded himself that he held his ministry by the mercy of God. When he thought of God's undeserved favour towards him in placing him in the ministry, he was much encouraged and enabled to continue on. Paul was also realistic. He knew that his outer nature was wasting away--he was getting older and slower. But he also knew that his inner nature was being renewed day by day. Here we can learn from the apostle. To the world both being one of the aged and dealing with older people can be a nuisance. But to Paul, the fact that he was getting older meant that God was working longer in him to perfect him.

"Sometimes God can use very simple and human menas to encourage his people. Paul said that in Macedonia he had been afflicted at every turn, but that God had comforted him through the arrival of Titus. Charles Spurgeon, who at one time was in the midst of a time of plague, was very downcast. Then he read a verse from Scripture on a piece of paper in a shoemaker's window. This single verse encouraged him to press on in the Lord's work.

"Disappointments must come our way. This world is invariably disappointing. We ourselves are disappointing. To know that disappointments are part of God's plan to try, and test, and perfect his people is the key to coping with them. In 1649 William Bridge commented that 'Affliction is a bag of gold given unto the people of God; though it seems a leathern bag without, yet there is gold within.' William Carey might not have seen that immmediately in 1812 [when fire destroyed his work], nor might Nehemiah as he arrived in Jerusalem for his second stint as governor [to find that the people had returned to all their old sinful ways].

"You yourself may not see it in the midst of a present disappointment. But those who look to the Lord find, in the words of Ezra, that the joy of the Lord is their strength (Neh. 8:10)."

--Peter Barnes "Coping with Disappointment" The Banner of Truth, Issue 505, October 2005

Affliction and Suffering

"Faith told Moses that affliction and suffering were not real evils. They were the school of God, in which He trains the children of grace for glory; the medicines which are needful to purify our corrupt wills; the furnace which must burn away our dross; the knife which must cut the ties that bind us to the world." J.C.Ryle Holiness

Vanity

The girls came in from class Monday night. High and bubbling with understanding. Please help, me my Father, to rejoice with those who rejoice. Please help me not to envy them the education they are getting. Thank you, after all, that You are providing for them the education that I had, but can not pass on to them. But you are giving them greater than I had. And for which I praise You. They are our arrows. They will go farther. Isn't this the way it is to be? Please, the thrill in my heart is alloyed with envy, jealousy, fear that they will leave me behind.

Susan claimed "Dr. G has reshaped my mind". That was putting it a little too strongly, I thought. I don't think the girls know how much their minds have been shaped to hold what he is now giving them. Nor do they know how large is what they know or don't know. They are just now learning. And oh, I am so thankful for it. I couldn't have given them what they are getting. After all, though my education was good (but not as good as theirs, nowhere near as good, what I learned were just seeds that needed to germinate. I always longed for more that connected dots. My intuitive gifts were keen to see the poetry of knowledge), I was a lazy student. So much more I could have learned, but didn't. For I didn't always see the point, which is exactly what we all do now, Kilby, Susan, Cal, and I. The point. I thank God for the education that He is providing the children. Through the Word, through the preachers and teachers of the Word, through the teachers who have been shaped by the Word, whatever their discipline.

I had a conversation with Dr. G this afternoon when I arrived. We talked about the Joseph and Judah book. He gave me four extra copies (to send Laurie, Dave, Jon, and Kevin/Dana). We talked about the story of the Bible, about his aged mother and the similarities to my father, about my daughters and his daughter, about some of the things I have just written. About how our children will go farther than we, how our children will live in a more chaotic world than we (that's another post I could write--which world are we talking about?) I believe that I revealed at the end of the conversation my current weakness when I admitted to a sense of competition that I don't want to have.

We heard a sermon on the Prodigal Son coming in to work. Not by a Sonship proponent this time, but by beloved Kevin Skogen. The main point of which was that our God is a Father Who kisses and runs to meet us when we are repentant. The son is humbled to the point that all he wants is to serve in his father's house. And that is where we should be. And that is where I am. So why this muddy spirit of competition that rises? Self-righteousness? Oh, my daughters, forgive my selfishness, my vanity, my example of not trusting God. May He be pleased to make me as Grandma Douglas, as Pastor Fisher, as Simeon and Anna. How come it is that so many of the Bible's characters did not finish well? What has happened to my sure knowledge and delight in God's sovereign purposes in our lives? I need to reread the life of Amy Carmichael. I need to stop worrying about how I will finish and just get back to service. Right now that means no more blogging, but reading a book for Cal.

Soli Deo Gloria.

THIS is what You had for me!

Child is asked to do something for grandmother which is time-consuming and impermanent by way of deleting viruses from grandmother's computer which come from stupid fwds which will get opened. Sinfully resentful mother commiserates with child and unwittingly encourages child's resentment. In God's providence, father reads Philippians 2 to family and mother is convicted of leading her child astray and repents, hoping child will learn lesson that the service and the obedience will honor God and grandmother and father in spite of the time it takes out of child's schedule. Mother thinks about it some more while swimming laps at the pool. The unfairness of it all. Woops, didn't she repent? Mother remembers telling child's sibling yesterday that child's sibling must face each of child's sibling's disappointments with something like: Oh. Thank you, Lord. THIS is what you had for me. Mother ponders the lesson which came out of her mouth and takes it into her heart. Mother needs grace to model submission.

Lord, please help me. Please help my children.

DiPrima

The pain is beginning to set in. Chest crushing panic. I watched Elli putting her skinny arms around Zack's neck tonight in Bible study. They were sitting in front of stalwarts Ant and Alex, and I knew Rick was just out of sight to my left. Pam hugged me before they went home and told me how tired she was. I suggested bed and she chuckled that she was going home to look at realty listings on the computer. She doesn't have a clue. I can hardly imagine life without them. Can I cry yet?

Blogs

So I was going to go to bed early tonight. Like nine o'clock. I intended to call Pam to see if they got a contract on their house, but as soon as Becky got off the phone with Amanda she informed me that Penny and Laura had called. Out of duty I called Penny back and then was blessed to help her through some depression about her daughter. But then it was too late to call Pam. But then Paula called. I had meant to call her this morning (after months of not talking to her at all) to tell her of the delicious dream that I woke with of her being all sanctified and telling Dan of the wonderful changes that I could see in her. We had a great conversation to very late. And then Cal called to say they would be home after the girls got out of EE which lasts until ten. So then I caught up on the kids' blogs and man, am I ever thankful for the internet and blogs. How ever would I share all the things my kids think about, or share in their friendships? I am so blessed, so very blessed. I bless the Lord. Now it is late and my husband and daughters are home at last and I am going to bed happy. Bless the Lord.