"Thy Good and Comfortable Word" by Amy Carmichael

“Thy Good and Comfortable Word”

Lover of souls, Thee have I heard,
Thee will I sing, for sing I must,

Thy good and comfortable word

Hath raised my spirit from the dust.

In dusty ways my feet had strayed,

And foolish fears laid hold on me,

Until what time I was afraid,

 I suddenly remembered Thee.

Remembering Thee, I straight forgot,

What otherwhile had troubled me;

It was as if it all were not,

I only was aware of Thee.

  

Of Thee, of Thee alone, aware,

I rested me, I held me still,

The blessed thought of Thee, most Fair,

Dispelled the brooding sense of ill.

 

And quietness about me fell,

And Thou didst speak: my spirit heard;

I worshipped and rejoiced; for well

I knew Thy comfortable word.

 

Whoso hath known that comforting,

The inward touch that maketh whole,

How can he ever choose but sing

To Thee, O Lover of his soul.

Amy Carmichael was a missionary to India in the late 1800s and early 1900s.  Her main ministry was rescuing children from immoral duties in the Hindu temples, and then raising them in the Christian faith at Dohnavur Fellowship.  The children often sang songs of praise to God throughout the day; this was a key part of their upbringing!   Amy did not have an easy life.  After a painful injury, she spent her latter decades as an invalid.  These experiences enabled her to write straight from the heart of God to comfort those who faced trials and difficulties, and to challenge them to rise up to the call of God on their lives no matter what.

I wanted to share an Amy Carmichael poem with these magnolia pictures, so I thumbed through my dog-eared copy of her book Toward Jerusalem which I've had since college.  It was hard picking.  Perhaps "Bud of Joy" would have been more fitting for the pictures, but that one didn't "speak" to me at the moment.  I also like "Wandering Thoughts" - I remember that going deep into me one hard year.  "Love Through Me" and "The Sign" and "Cape Comorin" are other old favorites which I shared at our ladies' Bible study two weeks ago, since our lesson mentioned Amy Carmichael.

When I finally settled on "Thy Comfortable Word", I did a Google search on the title so I wouldn't have to type in all the stanzas.  The top entry on the list?  Mine!  Apparently, I had included it in one of my old e-magazines over eight years ago, the same issue in which I announced the birth of my youngest daughter Melody.  If I'm not mistaken, I think I remember breathing out these poems' lines during labor.   (I really did strange things like that.)  I do know, based on a note I included with it in that e-magazine, that I sent one of my older daughters to grab the book from the shelf one day when I was feeling really low.  It could have been a day when I felt like that first and last magnolia in the pictures above, with the stamens falling out of the center,  just lying there disconnected in a heap.     As I read the poem then, I  could sense the comfort of God wash over me, his inward touch that made me whole.   Read it again, and maybe it will bless you now, too.  Perhaps these links about magnolias, Amy Carmichael poems, and lessons I learned from mothering Melody will also encourage you.   Enjoy...

• Still Life Magnolias
• Little Gem's First Bloom and the Day of Small Things
• “A Parent’s Prayer” by Amy Carmichael 
• Melody, My Bud of Joy (with a poem by Amy Carmichael)
• Melody-isms
• The Password of Praise
• Mommy, Can I Help You?
• Simple Shoes 
• Melody and Bab

 Melody

P.S.  My daughter Julia is about to give birth to her first child any day now.  Say a prayer for her, will you?  Funny thing is, the midwife who is supposed to deliver baby Lucas also delivered my little Melody.  We didn't make that connection until about a month ago.  How time flies...  

I often link my posts to these blogs:

Still Saturday

The Sunday Community

  

The Day of Small Things

Flame vine on a neighborhood fence

I've been watching for it
and saw it on my way to the bank.

Today, in its emerging glory!
(See last year's flame vine photos, too.)

The curly vines always amuse me.

Could it be?  Flame vine in a tree?
Yes, blocks away, but it's the same kind!

At home again, fresh folded linens
on a fresh made bed (a new habit?)

Alternating housework with lesson planning
- then back in the classroom next week!

Visit with an old friend from faraway

Afternoon clouds = whimsy!

Clouds always speak to me!
(They have a whole category on my other blog...)

Hanging out the WELCOME -
a new flag for a new season
(but I still need to take down
the Christmas wreath from the front door).

Warm cinnamon rolls
for an after school snack = happy kids!

My "new" sweater,
$4 from Salvation Army,
nice and cozy!

"Who dares despise the day of small things...?"

Zechariah 4:10 (NIV)

Yes, I know that's out of the original context,

but the concept still rings true:

sometimes the little things in life count the most.

A quiet day (for the most part), 

no big thrills, still important.

Thankful!

"Brothers and sisters, 

think of what you were when you were called. 

Not many of you were wise by human standards; 

not many were influential; 

not many were of noble birth. 

But God chose the foolish things of the world 

to shame the wise; 

God chose the weak things of the world 

to shame the strong." 

1 Corinthians 1:26-27 (NIV)

I often link my posts to these blogs:

Still Saturday

The Sunday Community

  

My Hope Is In You

May integrity and uprightness protect me, 

because my hope, Lord, is in you.

Psalm 25:21

This is my verse for the week.

Based on all the troubling news 

we've faced lately in our community 

and in our circle of friends, 

I really need it a sense of hope.

My husband called me outside to see

this beautiful rainbow this morning.

It's a double rainbow, 

but only a half rainbow since it has no left side.

Maybe that's a symbol that hope

is not always configured the way we expect.

It's not always readily apparent.

We need God to reveal it to us,

to lead us on the right path.

But it is our choice to seek and follow,

and to love the truth enough to do what is right

even in the storms.

Show me your ways, Lord,

    teach me your paths.
Guide me in your truth and teach me,
    for you are God my Savior,
    and my hope is in you all day long.

Psalm 25:4-5

Grace,

Virginia Knowles

www.ComeWearyMoms.blogspot.com

This post will be linked at:

 

Sweet Shot Tuesday 

You can see my current photo collection here: Sweet Shot 2013.   

Raising Homemakers

Wise Woman

Whole-Hearted Home

Walking Redeemed

Still Saturday

The Sunday Community

Scripture and a Snapshot

On Clouds, Hands, Oysters and Messy Humanity

Dear friends,

On the way home from an appointment: clouds.

I lucked out with the sun rays on these, hastily taken at a stop light...

One of my hobbies is watching clouds and photographing them...

They are a symbol of hope and God's providence for me.

I pulled over into a parking lot for some of these 

so I could could get the maximum view of clouds 

while avoiding the visual interference of power lines.

I usually crop out any remaining signs of messy human existence (power lines, buildings, light poles), and I sometimes use saturation to brighten things up, as you can see from these two versions of the same shot:

Another cloud of sorts,

another sign of messy human existence:

My appointment today was with my hand specialist.

Now that I'm out of my brace,

I have to buddy tape my fingers 

with a wad of gauze in between

in hopes that the pinky

will stop twisting against the ring finger.

Tape and gauze, for two more months, 

is not exactly what I wanted to hear.

It's necessary for recovery, a good thing,

but an inconvenience nonetheless.

But I will count my blessings

that I could see on the new x-ray

that the fracture is healing neatly,

even if there is a loose end

that will take two more years 

for new bone to completely fill in.

As I waited for the doctor to enter the exam room, I read from the chapter "Oyster Bed" in Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh:

"Each is fitted and formed by its own life and struggle to survive. It is an oyster, with small shells clinging to its humped back. Sprawling and uneven, it has the irregularity of something growing. It looks rather like the house of a big family, pushing out one addition after another to hold its teeming life... It amuses me because it seems so much like my life at the moment, like most women's lives in the middle years of marriage. It is untidy, spread out in all directions, heavily encrusted with accumulations and... firmly embedded on its rock."

My life, too.  The needs of my family, my friends, my students, my community, my own interests.  Commitments.  Opportunities.  Interruptions.  All piled on, seeming unseemly at the first glance, even the second glance.  Messy, messy human existence at times that I can't (completely) crop out of my real life.  Like the oyster, I hope I am firmly embedded to the rock, and maybe even growing a pearl inside.  And despite the demands, my beloved peeps do give back, too. Joy. Compassion. Understanding. Chocolate.  Relationships, even complicated ones, are a blessing.

Sweet gift from my sister-in-law Dana, who also sent dark chocolate toffee!

Grace and peace,

Virginia Knowles

www.ComeWearyMoms.blogspot.com

P.S. More to read:

A lovely, candid blog post by Tsh which I found in my Google Reader this afternoon.  Life's answers aren't always perfect, but there are still "Partial Solutions" in our complicated lives: Making Friends with Imperfect People. 

My own series on Advocating for the Vulnerable, dealing with the human messiness of elder abuse, homelessness, child trafficking, and more to come.

The story of the injured hand: Many Ways of Coping with a Fractured Hand and Arthritis

Clouds, more clouds, and the realities of life: 

• One Sky
• I Dreamed a Dream
• Is My Head in the Clouds? (And Notes on Beauty)
• Shimmer and Shadow
• Weekend Gratitude: Lake Sybelia at Sunset, Lake Lily at Dusk

From I Dreamed a Dream

This post will be linked at:

(In)Courage

 P52 Photo Project  this week's theme "Hobbies"

(Yes, I confess that I submitted two photos to P52 this week!  You can find the other on my www.ContinueWellHomeSchool.blogspot.com here: Ripstick or Rat?)

Domestically Divine Tuesday 

Raising Homemakers 

Funki Planet 

Sunshine On His Shoulders Makes Him Happy

Every time we ride in the van as a family, my youngest son races to be first to get the front seat. Why? So he can put the window down and stick his face out the window to feel the breeze and sunshine.  The rest of us would rather close the windows and leave the air conditioning on, and I've had to call the shots (UP!) on scorcher days with a van full of kids, but it's not too much to indulge his fresh air desires once in a while, is it?


Little things.


What can you do to make a child smile today?


Virginia

This post is linked to 

 P52 Photo Project Week #30 on July 21, theme "Sunshine"

Sunlight in Storms

Hello friends!


It's "sunlight" week at the P52 Photo Project but I'm taking a little different twist in that I'm not taking a picture of a sunny day.  Life isn't always sunny.  Storms blow in unexpectedly, as is the case in this series of pictures.  Even though it is getting dark because of night and storm, there is still light, and it is sunlight.  I like to think of that when life is getting rough and dark.  There is still light from God. I just have to look for it and try to see by it.



I had driven my boys down to Baldwin Park for youth group and spent the next couple of hours in Subway munching on cookies and reading.  The sun was setting by the time I picked them up a little after 8, but you couldn't really see it because a storm was suddenly rolling in.  I loved the dramatic lighting, so the first shot was taken in the parking lot adjacent to the church office. 

A few minutes later, I pulled over next to Lake Baldwin to snap a few more pictures.  The lightning flashed in  the distance, but I wasn't able to capture any of it on my iPod, which doesn't "do" that kind of light well anyway.  This is a beautiful place to walk in better weather, with a path all the way around.  I think it's about 3 miles?

This photo is almost impressionistic in its style.
I like the way the tree branches seem to be reaching up,
cradling the leaves.

Just minutes later, the rain poured down.  I like the effect of the water and light through the windshield, courtesy of the iPod, which like I said before, doesn't "do" light well.

By the time we got home,
just 20 minutes after leaving Baldwin Park,
the rain torrents made driving visibility almost zero.
The photo quality is technically terrible,
but I still like the effect of light and shape.

Our sideyard walkway, so wet and dark that
I can barely make out where to step.

My husband took this picture of a
normal sunset of Lake Baldwin the next day.
He texted it to me and I set it as my wallpaper.
He knows how much I like sunsets and clouds. Pretty!

While we're doing sunsets, just three more pictures I took on June 1.  My husband and I went out to dinner at Jason's Deli and shot the first two photos from the parking lot afterwards.  Yes, that is a rainbow in the first one!  The third one is from the Sam's Club parking lot when we stopped for gas; the reflection in the foreground is from a puddle and in the background is ReStore (a thrift store operated by Habitat for Humanity. 

If you would like to see more sunset with clouds and lake pictures, click here: Weekend Gratitude: Lake Sybelia at Sunset, Lake Lily at Dusk.

While we're talking about storms, I ran across two articles I wrote years ago about handling crises in life.  They are good encouragement for me right now.  Here the links with short excerpts from each:

Preparing Our Children for the Storms of Life"The storms of life will come and go, but will your child be prepared or be blown away? In some ways, home schooling shelters children from many storms of life – appropriately so!  In other ways, it can prepare them to be even more effective in dealing with challenging and disappointing situations.  This process takes effort on the parents’ part as they try to discern the balance of sheltering and preparing." 

Tough times? 

"Enduring tough times can enable us to connect more completely with those around us, either because we are finally desperate enough to ask for help or because we finally understand enough about their struggles to show a little extra compassion. There are new choices, too… We can stop placing such stringent expectations on others, and instead guard against our own unhealthy reactions toward those who disappoint us. We can humble ourselves enough to seek God's guidance, rather than just plowing ahead with whatever solution seems most efficient at the moment. We can survive with less clutter and start to appreciate simple blessings. Our lives can become less compulsive and more compelling. We can become real, authentic, sincere people, rather than cold, hard, shallow shells. We can allow ourselves to feel and grieve and then move on, instead of covering it all over with a superficial happy face. That's when the deeper peace and joy come along -- as the inner calm right in the middle of the tempestuous storm." 

Grace to you in the middle of it all,
Virginia Knowles
www.ComeWearyMoms.blogspot.com


This post will be linked Saturday morning (June 16) at:

P52 Photo Project