I’ve been contemplating a series of posts for a long time…at least a week now (haha!)…that will serve several purposes. One is to simply jump start the Knowing Your ABCDs blog and give us a fresh beginning again on posting here and sharing from the variety that you’ve come to know and love (yes…yes, you have! lol).
Of course, aside from the “self-serving” purpose, I truly want to share some things that have encouraged me at different times, some things that are new to me, and all of which I hope will encourage you too.
Life is but a vapor, and we are but dust and like a flower that is here today and tomorrow is fading away. And yet life with its joys and triumphs, pains and tears, seems at times to trudge along, and at other times seems to be snatched away from us.
Sometimes we need to know that it’s the same for others too. Sometimes we need to hear that God is not far away and that He is still working and that while we have never doubted His ever-presence with us, His children…yes (let’s be honest), we really have doubted at times or at least forgotten or ignored His presence. Sometimes we’re tired. Tired of life. Tired of death. Tired of pain. Tired of being tired.
So…if that might be you…take a deep breath…no…deeper. And drink deeply of the faithfulness and love of God as we walk His winding trail and depend on His voice to lead us home.
I came across this just tonight and wanted to start off with sharing it…a little excerpt from what is probably a long-forgotten book…out of print for over 50 years…written by the wife of a famous missionary (he was Jonathan Goforth), Rosalind Goforth, who titled it Climbing: Memories of a Missionary’s Wife. She begins her book with this:
WHY
This little word, “WHY,” faced me many months before the willingness came to attempt the writing of these memories.
Why indeed should any further record of my life be made, for in How I Know GOD Answers Prayer and also in Goforth of China not a little of my life experiences have been given. Therefore, a brief statement is fitting as to how or why this personal story came to be written.
For years previous to my husband’s death, and, to my surprise, increasingly so after his “life” appeared, requests reached me urging that I write something of my own life, my struggles, yes, and overcomings – something that might help others facing life’s hard problems.
For months, even years, I persistently turned these requests down. Then, about eighteen months ago, when several letters reached me from people and places far distant from each other, all containing the same urging, I began seriously to wonder, “Is this thing of GOD?”
In a very uncertain way, I began to write down visions of the past as they came. I realize keenly how imperfect is the record – scrappy, disconnected, and entirely incomplete, for the half of the Lord’s mercies can never be told. I am too old to rewrite, so, such as it is, the story is now sent forth with the hope that He who has sustained in the writing will use it to help other climbers up life’s hillside.
CALL BACK!
If you have gone a little way ahead of me, call back;
‘Twill cheer my heart and help my feet along the stony track;
And if, perchance, Faith’s light is dim, because the oil is low,
Your call will guide my lagging course as wearily I go.
Call back, and tell me that He went with you into the storm;
Call back, and say He kept you when the forest’s roots were torn;
That when the heavens thundered and the earthquake shook the hill,
He bore you up and held you where the very air was still.
O friend, call back and tell me, for I cannot see your face;
They say it glows with triumph, and your feet bound in the race;
But there are mists between us, and my spirit eyes are dim,
And I cannot see the glory, though I long for word of Him.
But if you’ll say He heard you when your prayer was but a cry,
And if you’ll say He saw you through the night’s sin-darkened sky
If you have gone a little way ahead, O friend, call back
‘Twill cheer my heart and help my feet along the stony track.
– Selected
(the entire book is available for download in 15 small chapter sections here)