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Author: Elisabeth Elliot
Because I had been invited to write a new biography of Amy Carmichael of Dohnavur, Lars and I visited the work she founded in South India. We arrived on their monthly prayer day in time to attend the evening meeting. The House of Prayer is a beautiful terra-cotta-colored building with a red tile roof and a tower which holds the chimes that play a hymn at 6:00 A.M. and 9:00 P.M. There is no furniture inside except a few chairs for older ones and decrepit foreigners such as we who aren't used to sitting on the floor. Everyone filed in in perfect silence, bare feet moving noiselessly over polished red tile floors, and sat in rows according to age, the tiny ones up front, dressed in brightly colored cotton dresses. Behind them sat the next age group, girls in skirts and blouses; then came those in skirts, blouses, and half-saris; finally the "accals" (older ones who look after the younger) in blue or purple or green saris. All had smoothly combed and oiled black hair, many of them with flowers in it. An Indian man played the little pump organ while they sang several traditional hymns in English, as well as songs written by "Amma" (the Tamil term of respect, used for Amy Carmichael). There was Scripture reading, then a prayer of thanksgiving for the new child who had just come, a little girl of two whose mother could not keep her. Her new mother, an accal, carried her to the platform and stood holding her while they prayed and then sang "Jesus Loves Me." At another service in the House of Prayer, Lars and I sat in the tiny balcony which leads up to the tower. We looked down on the lovely scene made even brighter this time because the smallest children had been given colored flags to wave in time to the music of certain songs; a custom instituted by Amma which I think should be adopted by every Sunday School and church, for it enables the tiny ones to participate by doing something even when they are too young to know the words by heart. Older ones played tambourines, triangle, and bells, while one drummed softly with a leather flap on the mouth of a clay pot. I was allowed to use Amma's room for my reading and writing. Called the Room of Peace, it is spacious, has high ceilings and tiled floors, many doors and windows opening onto a verandah on three sides where there is a walk-in bird cage. A brick runway leads from the verandah to a platform under the trees where, following the accident which disabled her for the rest of her life, Amy Carmichael used to be taken to sit in the cool of the evening. Glass-doored bookcases, filled with her beloved books, stand around the walls of the room. Above them hang paintings of snowcaps by her friend, Dr. Howard Somervell, of Everest fame. There are hand-carved and painted wooden texts, "Good and Acceptable and Perfect" (referring to the lesson she found so hard to learn after the accident, of acceptance of the will of God), "A Very Present Help," "By one who loveth is another kindled" (from St. Augustine), and, the largest of all, blue letters on teak, "God hath not given us the spirit of fear." Also on the walls are a mounted tiger head, a pendulum clock, and one of the very few photographs ever taken of Amma. In that Room of Peace I was glad not to be wearing shoes (nobody wears shoes in the houses of Dohnavur)--it seemed holy ground as I studied the marginal notes and underlinings of her favorite books, read the handwritten notebooks in which she explained for members of the Dohnavur Fellowship the "pattern shewn," the principles and practices which the Lord had given her at the inception of her work. I thumbed through worm-eaten ledgers, clippings, photographs--priceless documents that trace the day-by-day history of a task accepted for the Lord, the rescuing of little girls from temple prostitution and little boys from dramatic societies in which they were used for evil purposes. In later years the work included children in other kinds of need. The most powerful witness to the quality of the service Amma rendered is to be seen in the Indian men and women who were reared there and who have remained to lay down their lives for others. Pungaja, for example, lives in the compound called Loving Place, where some of the mentally handicapped are cared for. "I have no professional training," she told me. "The Holy Spirit gives me new wisdom each day to deal with them. Some are like wild animals, but the Lord Himself is my helper. I can't see on one side, but even in my weakness He has helped me. First Corinthians says that God has chosen the weak things of the world to confound the mighty, that no flesh should glory in His presence. "One day I went to Amma with a burdened heart, but when she hugged me all my sorrow went. "'What work are you doing?' Amma asked me. I told her. "'Do you find it difficult?' I said yes. "'These are soldiership years,' she said. "Now it is my joy to serve these very difficult people." She spoke quietly, looking out into the courtyard where some of them went back and forth. She had lost an eye as a child, and her face revealed suffering, but I saw the joy she spoke of written there, the joy of a laid-down life. I saw it in very many faces in Dohnavur. They do not mention that there are no diversions, no place to go, no time off (except two weeks per year--I asked about that). They do their work for Him who came not to be ministered unto. We came away smitten, thinking of Amma's own words from her little book If, "...then I know nothing of Calvary love." The meaning of the living sacrifice, the corn of wheat, the crucified life, had been shown to us in twentieth century flesh and blood.
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THanks much.
Author: Elisabeth Elliot
Source: Keep A Quiet Heart
Thanksgiving for What is Given
Some people are substituting "Turkey Day" for Thanksgiving. I guess it must be because they are not aware that there's anybody to thank, and they think that the most important thing about the holiday is food. Christians know there is Somebody to thank, but often when we make a list of things to thank Him for we include only things we like. A bride and groom can't get away with that. They write a note to everybody, not only the rich uncle who gave the couple matching BMWs, but the poor aunt who gave them a crocheted toilet-paper cover. In other words, they have to express thanks for whatever they've received.
Wouldn't that be a good thing for us to do with God? We are meant to give thanks "in everything" even if we're like the little girl who said she could think of a lot of things she'd rather have than eternal life. The mature Christian offers not just polite thanks but heartfelt thanks that springs from a far deeper source than his own pleasure. Thanksgiving is a spiritual exercise, necessary to the building of a healthy soul. It takes us out of the stuffiness of ourselves into the fresh breeze and sunlight of the will of God. The simple act of thanking Him is for most of us an abrupt change of activity, a break from work and worry, a move toward re-creation.
I am not suggesting the mouthing of foolish platitudes, or evasion of the truth. That is not how God is glorified, or souls fortified. I want to see clearly what I have been given and to thank Him with an honest heart. What are the "givens"?
Thankless children we all are, more or less, comprehending but dimly the truth of God's fathomless love for us. We do not know Him as a gracious Giver, we do not understand His most precious gifts, or the depth of His love, the wisdom with which He has planned our lives, the price He pays to bring us to glory and fulfillment. When some petty private concern or perhaps some bad news depresses or confuses me, I am in no position to be thankful. Far from it. That is the time, precisely then, that I must begin by deliberately putting my mind on some great Realities.
What are these "givens"? What do I most unshakably believe in? God the Father Almighty. Jesus Christ His only Son. The Holy Ghost, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, the life everlasting. Not a long list, but all we need. "The necessary supplies issued to us, the standard equipment of the Christian." We didn't ask for any of them. (Imagine having nothing more than we've asked for!) They are given.
Take the list of whatever we're not thankful for and measure it against the mighty foundation stones of our faith. The truth of our private lives can be understood only in relation to those Realities. Some of us know very little of suffering, but we know disappointments and betrayals and losses and bitterness. Are we really meant to thank God for such things? Let's be clear about one thing: God does not cause all the things we don't like. But He does permit them to happen because it is in this fallen world that we humans must learn to walk by faith. He doesn't leave us to ourselves, however. He shares every step. He walked this lonesome road first, He gave Himself for us, He died for us. "Can we not trust such a God to give us, with Him, everything else that we can need?" (Romans 8:32, PHILLIPS). Those disappointments give us the chance to learn to know Him and the meaning of His gifts, and, in the midst of darkness, to receive His light. Doesn't that transform the not thankful list into a thankful one?