Building Material

"Every day brings its own duty and its own discipline. How is it that I make such slow progress while this is the case? It is a marvel to me why God allows characters like mine to defile His Church. I can only account for it with the thought that if I ever am perfected, I shall be a great honor to His name for surely worse material for building up a temple of the Holy Ghost was never gathered together before. The time may come when those who know me now, crude, childish, incomplete, will look upon me with amazement, saying, 'What hath God wrought!' . . ."

~ Katherine Elliott, January 1, 1841, Stepping Heavenward, by Elizabeth Prentiss

Prayer on Suffering

 (Painting by Joseph DeCamp)

From Stepping Heavenward by Elizabeth Prentiss, we read in Katherine's journal entry for January 15, 1832:

"January 15. I have come to another birthday. I am seventeen. Mother has celebrated it just as usual, though I know all these anniversaries which used to be so pleasant must be sad days to her now that my dear father has gone. She has been cheerful and loving, and entered into all my pleasures exactly as if nothing had happened." 

I was reading Elisabeth Eliott's comments on this entry. She made these comments on her "Gateway to Joy" radio broadcast some years ago, but they're ever profound:

"Entered into all my pleasures as if nothing had happened." That's unselfishness. That is the new self. That's not natural for the old self. What can we learn from that mother's example of joy in sorrow? Joy is not incompatible with sorrow. We can be sorrowful, yet always rejoicing. What was the secret of her strength? I believe it was a pure heart. A heart given to God, resting in Him and therefore a heart able to give herself in love to her daughter, rather than giving way selfishly to her own sorrows" 

She also read a prayer that was written by someone else, as follows:

"Dear Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, I hold up all my weakness to Your strength, my failure to Your faithfulness, my sinfulness to Your perfection, my loneliness to Your compassion, my little pains to Your great agony on the cross. I pray that You will cleanse me, strengthen me, guide me, so that in all ways my life may be lived as You would have it lived, without cowardice and for You alone. Show me how to live in true humility, true contrition and true love. Amen."

Something for us all to consider no matter what we're going through.

Katy the Young Bride

I enjoyed  Elisabeth Elliot's radio broadcast "Gateway to Joy" and have a few of the transcripts bookmarked on my computer, most connected with some of her readings from the book Stepping Heavenward by Elizabeth Prentiss. The reading on one particular day was from some of the thoughts Katy had when she was first married. Or may I say struggles Katy had. Katy was married on January 16, 1837, the day after her birthday. Her wedding day reflections were pretty good ones, I rather think:

"Yesterday was my birthday and today is my wedding day. We meant to celebrate the one with the other, but Sunday would come this year on the 15th! I am dressed and have turned everybody out of this room, where I have suffered so much mortification and experienced so much joy, that before I give myself to Earnest and before I leave home forever, I may once more give away myself to God. I have been much too absorbed in my earthly love and am shocked to find how it fills my thoughts, but I do want to belong to God. I will begin my married life in His fear, depending on Him to make me an unselfish, devoted wife."

But then, after having been back from the honeymoon for just a short while, we see a regression. On February 16th she writes:

"Our honeymoon ends today. There hasn't been quite as much honey in it as I expected. I supposed that Earnest would be home every evening at least, and that he would read aloud and have me play and sing and that we should have delightful times together. But now he has got me, he seems satisfied and goes about his business as if he had been married 100 years. "

After some more unfortunate reflections and a less than pleasant confrontation with her new husband, she wrote this on February 17th:

"February 17. Mrs. Embury has been here today. I longed to compare notes with her and find out whether it really is my fault that I'm not quite happy, but I could not bear to open my heart to her on so sacred a subject. We had some general conversation, however, which did me good for the time at least. She said she thought one of the first lessons a wife should learn is self-forgetfulness. I should like to know if there is any reason on earth why a woman should learn self-forgetfulness, that does not apply to a man."  

Mrs. Elliot made some good points on this that I wanted to pass on. Quoting Colossians 3:12-21, she mentions that as a good passage for parents to pass on to their children who are leaving home to be married: "And for a recipe for a happy marriage and a peaceful home, a passage that I often give to young couples when they are getting married is in Colossians 3. If any couple would take this passage for their rule of life, I don't think there would ever be a divorce."

You know, I would agree with Mrs. Elliot. And I do believe Katy learned this as the years went by. And one many of us continue to learn.

Yet Another Child

Katy's sister-in-law is less than delighted when Katy gives birth to yet another child. . .

"She says I shall now have one more mouth to fill and two feet the more to shoe, more disturbed nights, more laborious days, and less leisure or visiting, reading, music, and drawing.

"Well! This is one side of the story, to be sure, but I look at the other. Here is a sweet, fragrant mouth to kiss; here are two more feet to make music pattering about my nursery. Here is a soul to train for God; and the body in which it dwells is worthy all it will cost, since it is the abode of a kingly tenant. I may see less of friends, but I have gained one more dearer than them all, to whom, while I minister in Christ's name, I make a willing sacrifice of what little leisure for my own recreation my other darlings had left me. Yes, my precious baby, you are welcome to your mother's heart, welcome to her time, her strength, her health, her tenderest cares, to her lifelong prayers! Oh, how rich I am, how truly, how wondrously blest!"

~ Katy, from Stepping Heavenward by Elizabeth Prentiss

Mother's Words

"Mother keeps saying I spend too much time in brooding over my sorrow. As for her, she seems to live in heaven. Not that she has long prosy talks about it, but little words that she lets drop now and then show where her thoughts are and where she would like to be. She seems to think everybody is as eager to go there as she is. For my part, I am not eager at all. I can't make myself feel that it will be nice to sit in rows, all the time singing, fond as I am of music. And when I say to myself, 'Of course we shall not always sit in rows singing,' then I fancy a multitude of shadowy, phantomlike beings, dressed in white, moving to and fro in golden streets, doing nothing in particular, and having a dreary time, without anything to look forward to.

"I told Mother so. She said earnestly and yet in her sweetest, tenderest way, 'Oh, my darling Katy! What you need is such a living, personal love of Christ to make the thought of being where He is so delightful as to fill your mind with the single thought!"

"What is 'personal love of Christ?'"

~Katy's entry for December 14, 1831~Stepping Heavenward, Elizabeth Prentiss

I have to tell you that Katy's mother is one of my favorite literary characters. I first read the book many years ago, but this particular entry really struck me at the time, and has been a favorite since. I wish I would respond to my daughters the way that this woman, who "seemed to live in heaven," normally did to hers. And note, these words "personal love of Christ" came back to Katy to grab her heart as she neared what was no doubt the latter part of her life, as she lay on her sick bed. I wonder what words will we speak that will be embraced by our children in their later years. I wonder will we speak words that will be with them in times of trial when we're no longer with them in the flesh.