Mother Teresa

"... Our lives have to be woven with prayer. They have to be woven with Christ to be able to understand, to be able to share. Because today there is so much suffering - and I feel that the passion of Christ is being relived all over again - are we there to share that passion, to share that suffering of people. Around the world, not only in the poor countries, but I found the poverty of the West so much more difficult to remove. When I pick up a person from the street, hungry, I give him a plate of rice, a piece of bread, I have satisfied. I have removed that hunger. But a person that is shut out, that feels unwanted, unloved, terrified, the person that has been thrown out from society - that poverty is so hurtable and so much, and I find that very difficult. Our Sisters are working amongst that kind of people in the West. So you must pray for us that we may be able to be that good news, but we cannot do that without you, you have to do that here in your country. You must come to know the poor, maybe our people here have material things, everything, but I think that if we all look into our own homes, how difficult we find it sometimes to smile at each, other, and that the smile is the beginning of love.

And so let us always meet each other with a smile, for the smile is the beginning of love, and once we begin to love each other naturally we want to do something. So you pray for our Sisters and for me and for our Brothers, and for our Co-Workers that are around the world. That we may remain faithful to the gift of God, to love Him and serve Him in the poor together with you. What we have done we should not have been able to do if you did not share with your prayers, with your gifts, this continual giving. But I don't want you to give me from your abundance, I want that you give me until it hurts.

The other day I received 15 dollars from a man who has been on his back for twenty years, and the only part that he can move is his right hand. And the only companion that he enjoys is smoking. And he said to me: I do not smoke for one week, and I send you this money. It must have been a terrible sacrifice for him, but see how beautiful, how he shared, and with that money I bought bread and I gave to those who are hungry with a joy on both sides, he was giving and the poor were receiving. This is something that you and I - it is a gift of God to us to be able to share our love with others. And let it be as it was for Jesus. Let us love one another as he loved us. Let us love Him with undivided love. And the joy of loving Him and each other - let us give now - that Christmas is coming so close. Let us keep that joy of loving Jesus in our hearts. And share that joy with all that we come in touch with. And that radiating joy is real, for we have no reason not to be happy because we have no Christ with us. Christ in our hearts, Christ in the poor that we meet, Christ in the smile that we give and the smile that we receive. Let us make that one point: That no child will be unwanted, and also that we meet each other always with a smile, especially when it is difficult to smile."

- Excerpt from Mother Teresa's 1979 Nobel Peace Prize Lecture

Quote.

“I would rather be what God chose to make me than the most glorious creature that I could think of; for to have been thought about, born in God's thought, and then made by God, is the dearest, grandest and most precious thing in all thinking.”

- George MacDonald

Our most precious possession

"I want to ask you to be very careful about love; it is our most precious possession. Don't let it be weakened anywhere. Be loving. Be courteous to one another. I have known some who thought that if one loved one could be rude. Love is never rude. Look not on your own things, but on the things of others. What can you do today to make someone happy? Do that."

- Amy Carmichael, Candles in the Dark

A quiet heart.

"The apostle Paul tells us we are "hidden with Christ in God" (Colossians 3:3, NIV). There is mystery there, but when I think of the life of Mary, I see some facets of that mystery that I missed when I read the apostle. Her's was a hidden life, a faithful one, a holy one - holy in the context of a humble home in a small village where there was not very much diversion. She knew that the ordinary duties were ordained for her as much as the extraordinary way in which they became became her assignment. She struck no poses. She was the mother of a baby, willing to be known simple as his mother for the rest of her life. He was an extraordinary baby, the Eternal Word, but His needs were very ordinary, very daily to his mother. Did she imagine that she deserved to be the chosen mother? Did she see herself as fully qualified? Surely not. Surely not more than any other woman who finds herself endowed with the awesome gift of a child. It is the most humbling experience of a woman's life, the most revealing of her own helplessness. Yet, we know this mother, Mary, the humble virgin from Nazareth, as "Most Highly Exalted."

I am thankful to God that unto us a Child was born. I am thanking Him also that there was a pure-hearted woman prepared to receive that Child with all that motherhood would mean of daily trust, daily dependence, daily obedience. I thank Him for her silence. That spirit is not in me at all, not naturally. I want to learn what she had learned so early: the deep guarding in her heart of each event, mulling over its meaning from God, waiting in silence for His word to her.

I want to learn, too, that it is not an extraordinary spirituality that makes one refuse to do ordinary work, but a wish to prove that one is not ordinary - which is a dead giveaway of spiritual conceit. I want to respond in unhesitating obedience as she did: Anything you say, Lord."

Blessed are the pure in heart,

for they shall see God.

- Except from Keep a Quiet Heart by Elisabeth Elliott
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What this is.

A few weeks ago, I was having a conversation with a friend, and we were talking about the women of God who have this captivating quality about them. Women like Elisabeth Elliott, Amy Carmichael, Ruth Bell Graham, our own mothers. These are strong women - not a strength of the physical kind, but a strength and a confidence that comes from years of putting their hope in the Lord. They are purely feminine with a beauty we all desire, that unassuming beauty of the soul - the kind that reflects our maker. My friend and I are both in our early 20s, and we want to be women of that substance. Women of unshakable faith, gentle strength, and a beautiful heart. We want to know Christ, and for his glory to be revealed in us.

Have you ever noticed the incredible combination of delicious food and great friends around a dinner table? It doesn't even have to be a dinner table! It can be a few chairs or a porch swing, but it's that conversation - the laughing, talking, sharing of life - that creates truly great moments. The kind of moments that add so much richness to your life. I live for moments like these.

So, in light of everything mentioned above, my friends and I have decided to meet once a week. There will be food, of course, and learning how to be women of God. I made this blog so that material is easily accessible for those girls, but also for anyone else who might be interested. It will contain passages from the Bible, books, articles, sermons, songs - words that might serve as an encouragement. God's word is our ultimate authority, but it's sometimes nice to have the perspective and wisdom of those who are far wiser than us.

 My prayer for these girls is the same prayer that I have for myself, that God would enable us to be women like that.