Happy Valentine's Day and "Seekers of YOUR Heart"

"The LORD hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love:  therefore with lovingkindness I have drawn thee." Jeremiah 31:3

 "The Eternal GOD is your refuge, and underneath are the Everlasting Arms." Deuteronomy 33:27

Dear Praying Friends and Family,

      "You are loved with an EVERLASTING LOVE  and UNDERNEATH are the EVERLASTING ARMS,"that's what the Bible says."  These powerful assurances of GOD's love were used by   Elisabeth Elliot (www.elisabethelliot.org) to  open her Radio Show, "Gateway to Joy,"  every morning  when the kids were little.    Wow, did GOD ever feed and encourage me during those daily 15 minutes when i was struggling so with an ongoing illness and trying to homeschool my kids.     This morning, when i sat down to write a few minutes, the LORD brought the verse above to my mind before what took place below at my Mother's house a few hours later.  It's so neat how the LORD "engineers all the circumstances of our lives," including the thoughts for this Friday email to share HIS everlasting love with You and me.  

   But before i write any more, i want to wish you a Happy Valentine's Day!  You are in my heart and prayers  as i write, but much, much more important, you are in GOD's thoughts and prayers for you this morning. In Psalm 139: 17-18 David tells us how much GOD's thoughts are toward us:

     "How precious and weighty also are YOUR thoughts to me, O GOD! How vast is the sum of them! 

    If I could count them, they are more in number than the sand. 

     You know, there is a lot of sand on the seashore, and to think that GOD's thoughts toward me are more than the grains of the sand...that makes me feel really loved by GOD. I like to know that other's are thinking of me, especially GOD, to  know that know matter what I am  going through, what I've done, that GOD love's me and is thinking of me.   HE has plans for me and is interceding for me  before HIS FATHER. 

 "For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but one WHO has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.  Let us therefore draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and may find grace to help in time of need." Hebrews 4:15,16

  But nothing makes me know more than i am dearly loved than to know that the CREATOR of the UNIVERSE , loved you and me so very much that HE sent HIS SON to earth to die on a wooden cross for me and for you.  

     "For GOD so loved the world that HE gave HIS only begotten SON that whosoever believes in HIM shall no perish but have everlasting life." John 3:16

    "Does our faith rest on having prayers answered as we think they should be answered, or does it rest on that mighty love that went down into death for us?  We can't really tell where it rests until we're in real trouble." Elisabeth Elliot

    This week the LORD spoke to me through my quiet times a lot but i had a very hard time getting my thoughts together when it came time to write last night.  I was having a reaction to something i shouldn't have taken and i couldn't think too well.  I'm learning more lessons in humility and other things about that, as me and my family and others suffered the consequences of my actions.  But, I knew that GOD could even use that, as HE has many times, and I "Bowed the Knee,"  turned the computer off, and decided to go and sauna and try again this morning.  I sat down this morning to write, and there were more interruptions (i continue to learn these are HIS interruptions)  and i just couldn't get the time or my thoughts to flow.  I surrendered again.  I didn't have time to write anything else before going to spend time with my Mom to celebrate Valentine's Day together, and just spend some long overdue time with her. When I got to Mom and Dad's house, she had a flip calendar  on her table, "Keep a Quiet Heart," by Elisabeth Elliot.  Elisabeth Elliot's writings and words  have fed me so much through the years, and helped me to trust the LORD, when i couldn't see anything but "ashes," at times.   I turned  to todays quote on the calendar, and my heart was so encouraged by the words she wrote:

 "The will of GOD is always different from what we expect, always bigger and, ultimately, infinitely more glorious than our wildest imaginings." 

    I just sat down and started writing down words to carry with me, all the while my Mom offering to let me borrow the calendar. I told her i couldn't do that, though i really would like to.  Finally,  the LORD nudged me to take it and share some of these quotes with you for Valentine's Day  to share HIS thoughts and HIS love with you.  I pray these thoughts that GOD has towards you and me will bless you, encourage you, and remind you above all of how much our heavenly FATHER loves us.  Now i knew why i couldn't get my thoughts together-  GOD wanted me to share THESE thoughts with you from Elisabeth Elliot's book, Keep a Quiet Heart, one of my favorite books of hers...thanks Mom, for sharing your calendar with me and so many others.    

My Mom, Thelma Gwen Fowler, in the middle with her cousins, Wanda Blair and Elizabeth Ann Gray at Mom's 80th birthday party.

•    "The Cross takes the weak and makes them strong.  It takes our sin and bestows CHRIST's righteousness.  Out of bondage we are made free.  Darkness is overcome by light.  Loss turns into gain." 

•     "Wait on the LORD, wait quietly, wait trustingly.  HE holds every minute of every hour of every day of every week of every month of every year in HIS hands.  Thank HIM in advance for what the future holds, for HE is already there." 

•     "Our galaxy is one-only one-of perhaps ten billion.  I know the ONE who made all that, HE is my SHEPHERD."  

With my own hands I founded the earth, with MY right hand I formed the expanse of sky; when I summoned them they sprang at once into being."..I teach you for your own advantage and lead you in the way you must go." Isaiah 48:13,17.

•  "LORD, give me a quiet heart that does not ask to understand, But confident steps forward in the darkness guided by THY hand."

•   "GOD is our great Reality, more real than the realest of earthly conditions, an unchanging Reality.  It is HIS providence that has put us where we are.  It's where we belong.  It is for us to receive it-all of it-humbly, quietly, thankfully."

• "It is the glory of GOD to conceal a matter." Proverbs 25:2

    GOD conceals much that we do not need to know, yet we do know that HE calls HIS own sheep by name and leads them out.  Does the Shepherd overlook anything that the sheep need?"

•    "There are things to be seen and learned in apparent wastelands which cannot be seen and learned in places of comfort, convenience, and company.  GOD intends to keep us in a place where there is nothing else we can count on.  Let's not ask for shortcuts.  Let's keep alert for the wonders our GUIDE will show us in the wilderness."

•    "What GOD gives in answer to our prayers will always be the things we most urgently need, and it will always be sufficient." 

•     "Paul stood up before them and said..."But now I urge you to keep up your courage, because not one of you will be lost; only the  ship will be destroyed."  Acts 27:21,22

     "It would seem that the GOD who promises to spare all hands might have "done the job right," saved the ship as well, and spared them the ignominy of having to make it to land on the flotsam and jetsam that was left.  The fact is HE did not, nor does HE always spare us." 

•   "A willing acceptance of all that GOD assigns and a glad surrender of all that I am and have constitute the key to receiving the gift of a quiet heart.  Whenever I balk, the quietness goes.  It is restored, and life immeasurable simplified, when i trust and obey."

•    "All of the past, I believe, is a part of GOD's story of each child of HIS-a mystery of love and sovereignty, written before the foundation of the world, never a hindrance to the task HE has designed for us, but rather the very preparation suited to our particular personality's need. 

•    "We can only know that ETERNAL LOVE is wiser than we, and we bow in adoration of that loving wisdom." 

•    "LORD, I believe, Help my unbelief.  Give me a trust big enough to embrace the baffling intricacies and to find in times of helplessness that YOU are a very present help." 

          "GOD is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble." Psalm 46:1 KJV

•    "Heaven is not here, it's there.  If we were given all we wanted here, our hearts would settle for this world rather than the next.  GOd is forever luring us up and away from this one, wooing us to HIMself and HIS still invisible Kingdom, where we will certainly find what we so long for." 

• "What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the CREATOR calls a butterfly."  As humanity we see only the imperfect underside of GOD's tapestry of our lives.  What we judge to be "tragic-the most dreaded thing that could happen," I expect we'll one day see as the awesome reason for the beauty and uniqueness of our life." Judy Squier

•   "Learning to pray is learning to trust the wisdom, the power, and the love of our Heavenly FATHER, always so far beyond our dreams.  HE knows our need and knows ways to meet it that have never entered our heads." 

     "GOD has allowed in the lives of each of us some sort of loss in order that we may learn to offer ourselves a little more willingly, and thus know fullness and freedom and joy that much sooner.  We're not naturally inclined to love GOD and seek HIS Kingdom.  Trouble may help to incline us-that is, it may tip us over, put some pressure on us, lean us in the right direction."

  

  "GOD's ultimate purpose in all suffering is joy.  Scripture is full of songs of praise that came out of great trials."  

•   "I will sing to the LORD, for HE has triumphed gloriously...the LORD is my strength, my song, and my salvation. HE is my GOD, and I will praise HIM." Exodus 15:1-2
•      
•      "GOD choreographs "the molecular dance" which goes on every second of every minute of every day in every cell in the universe.  For the record, one cell has about 200 trillion molecules.  HE makes note of the smallest seed and the tiniest sparrow.  He is not too busy to keep records even of our falling hair.  Yet in our darkness we suppose HE has overlooked us.  HE hasn't."

• "Why does GOD do this to me?  That question loses its power when i remember that this LORD, into whose strong hands I long ago committed my life, is engineering a universe of unimaginable proportions and complexity.  How could I possibly understand all that HE must take into consideration as HE deals with it and with me, a single individual!  HE has given us countless assurances that we cannot get lost in the shuffle."

• "I don't understand GOD, but then I'm not asked to understand, only to trust.  Bitterness dissolves when I remember the kind of love with which HE has loved me-HE gave HIMself for me.  Whatever HE is doing now is not cause for bitterness.  IT has to be designed for good, because HE love me and gave HIMself for me."

• "GOD's WORD is established forever, and HE tells us in a thousand ways that HIS will is our peace, HIS choices for us will lead to fulfillment and joy.  Do we suppose that we could find a better way than HIS?"

•  "Instead of seeing GOD's everlasting love, tenderly bending down to our humanness, longing over each one of us with a father's speechless longing; we sometimes think of HIM as indifferent, inaccessible, or just plain unfair.  The worst pains we experience are not those of the suffering itself but of stubborn resistance to it, our resolute insistence on our independence."

•   "And only Heaven is better than to walk with CHRIST at midnight, over moonless seas." Amy Carmichael

       HE is indeed Enough.  HE is not all we would ask for, if we were honest, but it is precisely when we do not have what we would ask for, and only then, that we can clearly perceive HIS all-sufficiency.  It is when the sea is moonless that the LORD has become my LIGHT."

• "GOD loves us with an everlasting love.  HE is unutterably merciful and kind, and sees to it that not a day passes without the opportunity for new applications of becoming a child of GOD.  This, to me, sums up the meaning of life."

    

     Well, i am tired, and I am only through part of February of the calendar...you can see why my heart is so encouraged in the LORD by Elisabeth Elliot and her writings.  You can order "Keep a Quiet Heart," through her website and you can read the transcripts from her radio show by clicking on http://www.backtothebible.org/index.php/Gateway-to-Joy.html,  and be encouraged by the same wisdom and insight that thousands of others and I have been encouraged by.  Please remember Elisabeth Elliot in your prayers...she is 84 now, and she is having some difficult health issues.  

    This past Sunday we sang a beautiful song in the choir called "Seekers of YOUR Heart."  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ox_-

AvcoJLk&feature=related.  As we read above from Elisabeth Elliot's words, GOD doesn't always spare HIS children from difficult

 circumstances.  In fact, those are the very things HE uses to show HIS great love to us, and to cause us to become "Seekers of HIS Heart."

May your heart and mine thirst and pant for our LORD and SAVIOR's heart, this Valentine's and everyday, as we learn more and more how

 very much that HE loves us.

      I love you and thank GOD for each one of you.  I hope and pray that you experience the depth of our FATHER's love for us:

     "And I pray that you, rooted and founded in love yourselves, may be able to grasp (with all CHRISTians) how wide and long and

 deep and high is the love of CHRIST-and to know yourselves that love so far above our understanding. So you will be filled with all

 your being with GOD HIMSELF!  Now to HIM who by HIS power within us is able to do infinitely more than we ever dare

 to ask or imagine-to HIM be the glory in the CHURCH and in CHRIST JESUS forever and ever." Ephesians 3:15-21

                                                                                            Happy Valentine's Day,

                                                                                                                                                    

                                                                                                                                                        mitzi

Please don't forget the Women's Conference, March 25 and 26 at First Baptist Athens...save the date!  It's going to be a great

weekend learning more about our FATHER's great love for us and sharing HIS love and joy with one another.   Linda Evans Shepherd, from

 Colorado, will be our speaker...come and join us!     

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"He will rest in HIS love." Zephaniah 3:17

"HE 'will do marvels' if you will learn the mystery of HIS silence, and praise HIM, for everytime HE withdraws HIS gifts that you may better know and love the GIVER."

              -Streams in the Desert, Feb. 9

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ox_-AvcoJLk&feature=related

"Seekers of Your Heart"

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