Accepting Another Path

Accepting Another Path

Long ago the LORD said to Israel: “I have loved you, my people, with an everlasting love. With unfailing love I have drawn you to myself.” Jeremiah 31:3

One of my hometown neighbors, Katherine, never married. One Saturday as we sipped green tea, she confided that as a young woman she had fallen in love with handsome Thomas, who had arrived in town to take over his uncle’s business. Katherine was painfully shy and couldn’t bring herself to speak to him, even though he attended her family’s church and soon became the teacher for the adult Sunday school class she and her sister, Minerva, attended. The theological questions she longed to ask stuck in her throat, and she kept her eyes downcast for fear they would reveal her adoration.

Then late one Sunday afternoon Katherine answered the door and found Thomas standing there, clutching his hat. He had come to ask her father’s permission to court her sister! Thomas and Minerva married a few months later.

Katherine could have chosen to become bitter or to withdraw further. Instead, she dried her tears and drew closer to the Lord through honest prayer and daily reading of his Word. And even though she maintained a close friendship with her sister, she did drop out of the class Thomas taught and began what became a forty-five-year stint as a Sunday school teacher for sixth-grade girls. The first week, she stammered through the lesson. The next week, she forced herself to look into each young girl’s face as she talked. Gradually, she gained confidence with each returned smile. Within a few years, she was exchanging letters with former students who had gone on to become nurses, teachers, and wives while she continued to welcome each year’s new batch of sixth graders. And always she encouraged both groups with reminders of God’s peace and presence no matter the circumstances.

Because Katherine chose to help others instead of wrapping herself in self-pity and bitterness, she made a profound difference in the lives of hundreds of women, including me. —SANDRA

Lord, help me to trust you with my disappointment when it is still fresh and painful. Help me to give you my hurt and then watch with confidence for the good you will bring from it. My head longs to trust you, but often my heart is afraid.

Our body is the most gracious gift God has given us, and if we hand over the mainspring of our life to God, we can work out in our bodily life all that he works in.

—OSWALD CHAMBERS (1874–1917), SCOTTISH BIBLE TEACHER, YMCA CHAPLAIN IN EGYPT