ByGrace

I ran across this article written by George Mueller, who lived in the 1800's and established orphanages in Bristol, England. He is most known as a man of prayer. I loved what he said in this article, and wanted to share it with you. It has pleased the Lord to teach me a truth that I really didn’t have anything to do with. Although more than fourteen years have passed since I first wrote this, I haven't lost any of the benefits of this lesson. The First Meal Of The Day The Lord taught me that the first business I needed to attend to every day was to have my spirit happy in the Lord. My first concern shouldn't be thinking of ways to serve and glorify the Lord, but rather, how to get my spirit into a happy state, and how to nourish my inner man. Trying to speak truth to unbelievers or minister to Christians or relieve the distressed or behave in other ways as a child of God may be done in a wrong spirit if I'm not first happy in the Lord - being nourished and strengthene...

This morning I read the heartbreaking story of a chartered bus from the Houston area that caught fire in south Dallas county. The bus was carrying elderly evacuees fleeing Hurricane Rita, ranging in age from 79-101. Several of them had oxygen tanks, and as the fire spread, the oxygen tanks began to explode, killing 24 people. My heart breaks as I think of the manner in which these people died and the grief their families have been plunged into. I hate tragedy and death. Sometimes I just plain old don't understand why things happen the way they do. My heart becomes heavy as I review all the devastation from Hurricane Katrina and the way people responded to it and to each other. Now another hurricane is approaching, in the same general area and almost as strong as Katrina. Earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, disease, violence . . . if you dwell on it, you'll go crazy. Where do you turn? As I thought on these things this morning, a still, small voice spoke within my heart, ...

One of our dear friends back home in Texas passed away this week. Mrs. Oleta Stephens was one of the most faithful ladies I have ever met. She didn't make a lot of fuss; she just worked quietly in the background. She was most known for her nursery duty every Sunday morning during Sunday school. She was there for our two younger children's nursery days, and she loved each child who came through that nursery! Even when she became sick and couldn't continue her nursery job, she still had the little ones around her before church many times. Mrs. Stephens, who was a widow, worked the same job at the local hospital since 1967. She was the mother of 5, grandmother of 6, and great-grandmother of 9. She had been a member of our home church for over 30 years. She was faithful! Why do I tell you about this ordinary lady, whom you will never know, and who wasn't famous or do anything great in the eyes of the world - or even in most of the eyes of Christianity? Because we ...

We added Sunday night services to our church tonight! This is something we've wanted to do since we started in February, but we needed to make sure we had the finances and the people to rent the room. The time has come, so we started tonight. Wes is preaching a series on "The Science of the Christian Life," a practical set of lessons on living out Christianity on a daily basis. We had 18 people in attendance, which is pretty good considering we had 21 this morning! The average church has a small fraction of their Sunday morning attendance on Sunday night. The Lord is good!

Lady Lydia has posted parts 2, 3, and 4 of Visible Success, the article that I mentioned last night, if you're interested in reading more.

I read Homeliving Helper occasionally, the blog of Lady Lydia, one of the regular contributors to Ladies Against Feminism . I enjoy Lady Lydia's blog and the LAF site for encouragement and inspiration, although I don't agree with every single thing on either site. Today I read this blog entry entitled Visible Success Part 1 on Homeliving Helper, and I loved it and wanted to pass it on. I hope you'll enjoy it!

If you'd like to read what the 2 other ladies that I mentioned in my testimony about choosing modest dress wrote about their dresses-only experience, you can find them here: Sarah and Jeni .