Giving Thanks for Fleas

Corrie ten Boom and her sister, Betsie, walked into their assigned barracks at Ravensbrück concentration camp.  The windows were broken and fall was quickly giving way to winter.  The room was filled with nothing but piers stacked three high, the stench of broken plumbing, and fleas.

“Betsie, how can we live in such a place!” Corrie asked her sister.

As Betsie asked God to show them how, she remembered what they had read that morning in 1 Thessalonians. Corrie read it again.

“Comfort the frightened, help the weak, be patient with everyone. See that none of you repays evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to all.”

But there was more, Betsie remembered.

“Rejoice always, pray constantly, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus.” 1 Thessalonians 5:14-18

So they obediently gave thanks for everything.  They gave thanks that there had been no inspection so that they were able to keep their Bible.  They gave thanks for the inhumanely tight quarters, that more women would hear the Word of God.

And then Betsie gave thanks for the fleas.

That was going too far, Corrie thought.  Thanks?  For the fleas that were making a meal of their legs? She didn’t understand it, but she went along.

Corrie and Betsie began holding worship services for the other women being held in their barracks with the Bible that had escaped the guards’ detection.  Day after day, they noticed that the guards refused to go into their barracks. Why?

They soon understood the reason they could be thankful for the fleas.

Guards wouldn’t step foot into their barracks because of the fleas.  If they had, the Bible would have been confiscated, and they might have been punished, or worse.

Because of God’s provision, they were able to continue reading the Word of God–the light for their very dark path, the truth that pierced the lies of the enemy, their hope in the face of certain tragedy.

Everything we have to be thankful for isn’t always easily noticed.  It isn’t always what we want to be thankful for.  Sometimes it’s the very thing that we pray God will take from us that He wants to use for His glory and our growth.

Sometimes we’ll see the reasons now for the fleas in our own lives–those things that keep after us, making our lives uncomfortable and sometimes downright miserable.  But I suspect we won’t fully understand until the day we can sit down with Jesus under a shade tree in heaven and He reveals the beauty of it all.

You can read the story of Corrie and Betsie ten Boom in The Hiding Place.

The Day a Girl Met a Man Named Jesus in the Middle of a War

Meet Lejla Allison, a girl who was first changed by the atrocities of war, and then changed again by a man named Jesus.  Watch and see how He was able to meet her need in a most personal and powerful way. And see what she’s doing now.


Want to be one of the reasons for the smile on a child’s face this Christmas?  (Not to mention that helping others is a sure-fire way to make your own problems seem just a little bit smaller.)  All you have to do is pack a shoebox and find a drop-off location near you.

Hurry!  Collection week is coming up quick, from November 12-19, 2012 (although you can send shoeboxes year-round to Operation Christmas Child at Samaritan’s Purse).

You can find the answers to all your questions by clicking on the link to Operation Christmas Child on the sidebar.

Who knows what Jesus will do in a child’s life through you.

“My dear, dear friends, if God loved us like this, we certainly ought to love each other. No one has seen God, ever. But if we love one another, God dwells deeply within us, and his love becomes complete in us—perfect love!”
1 John 4:12 The Message

Blessings,
Dorci

 

 

 

The Quiet Road

Hello!

Welcome to our new home!  Make yourself comfortable.  I pray you’ll find a quiet place here to rest with the Lord.  And I pray you find His riches for your journey.

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“And there he (Elijah) went into a cave, and spent the night in that place; and behold, the word of the Lord came to him, and He said to him, ‘What are you doing here, Elijah?’

So he said, “I have been very zealous for the Lord God of hosts; for the children of Israel have forsaken Your covenant, torn down Your altars, and killed Your prophets with the sword. I alone am left; and they seek to take my life.’

Then He said, ‘Go out, and stand on the mountain before the Lord.’ And behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind tore into the mountains and broke the rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a still small voice.” 1 Kings 19:9-12

Elijah’s having a bad day.  Well, it started out good.  With a miracle, in fact.  He’d faced the evil king of Israel, Ahab, and the false prophets of Baal.  He’d put their god to the test.  Of course, Baal never showed up. But God did, and in a big way.  And Ahab wasn’t happy.

Now Elijah was running for his life, and he desperately needed wisdom from the Lord.

Like Elijah, each of us is on a journey.  To walk it successfully, we must walk it with the Lord. We need to hear Him tell us which way to turn, when to wait, and what decisions to make along the way.

I’m convinced that one of the greatest weapons the enemy uses to keep us from hearing from God is the noise of the world.

Seems we can’t get through a day without being bombarded with news that can’t be more depressing, reading through a constant feed of what our friends are doing on social media, and exercising our texting thumbs.  And the media feels the need to keep us constantly apprised of Snooki’s life.  We watch to see who’s been voted off the island, picked as the next voice and what one housewife is saying about another. We Pinterest and Reddit and Tumblr. We email and online shop.  iPhones and iPads.  I, I, I. Our ears are constantly filled with the noise of the world.

And the words we need to hear most, the words God longs to speak to us, go unheard.

Because God’s is a still small voice.

None of those “noisy” things are bad in and of themselves (well, maybe the Snooki thing), but if we’re not careful, we can use them to fill the emptiness and loneliness of our hearts that only God can fill.

They can become our Baals.

The road walked with God is a quiet one. Quiet enough to hear His voice.  It’s the eye in the middle of the storm.  It’s the road off the beaten path.  It’s just you and Him, kicking up the dusty road as you share your hearts with one another.

That’s where the real treasure is found.

You share your worries with Him, He gives you wisdom.  You confess your unforgiveness and anger.  He gives you forgiveness and hope.  You praise Him and He holds you tight.

We need that in the middle of this lost and dying world.  We need direction and discernment. We need peace.

What’s more, the world needs us to have it.  It needs to see what a life walked with God looks like.  It needs to see that God is our hope and joy.  People need to hear that He has a quiet path for them, too.   Because they need Jesus, not Baal.

And so do we.

 “Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.”  Jeremiah 33:3