Suffering 2

Amy Carmicheal was a missionary to India who changed the way missionary work is approached. She respected the culture and people while sharing the gospel in a way that truly expressed the love of Christ to those around her. She rescued children from a life of prostitution and gave them a home and purpose and introduced them to life in Christ. My third child was named after this woman of faith. My prayer when I was carrying my Amy was that God would fill my child with the same love and passion for Jesus and for the lost that Amy Carmichael demonstrated.

In the early 1920’s Amy Carmichael had an accident that caused her to become bedridden for the rest of her life. (She died January 18, 1951.) She had been “Amma”, the Hindi word for mother, to the many girls in her compound. She worked the fields with them, side by side. She worked alongside them in cleaning, cooking, teaching, and every aspect of life in the ministry. Now, from her bed, she was in pain and limited by her circumstances.

However, I’ve read everything Amy wrote and while she wondered and prayed, I never read of her complaining or blaming the Lord for her situation. She trusted him. She had learned along the journey that he would always do what is best for her, even if it doesn’t seem best to her. During those thirty years of pain and limitations, Amy wrote profusely. We have poetry, testimony, instructional texts, and more because God put her in a place where she could work on that without the pressure of getting to other things. Her poetry in particular touches me deeply and I am not a person who enjoys that form of writing often.

Can I, in pain and without understanding what the Lord is doing, trust enough to allow him to use me, right where I am and without grumbling? I don’t know. I’ve often failed in those kinds of situations. I hope if ever tested with a long-term circumstance like Amy’s, He would find me faithful.

From the Collected Poems of Amy Carmicheal, Mountain Breezes, Poems of Surrender, page 173:

No Scars

Hast thou no scar? No hidden scar on foot, or side, or hand? I hear thee sung as mighty in the land; I hear them hail thy bright, ascendant star. Hast thou no scar?

Hast thou no wound? Yet I was wounded by the archers; spent, Leaned Me against a tree to die, and rent. By ravening beasts that compassed Me, I swooned. Hast thou no wound?

No wound? No scar? Yet, as the Master shall the servant be, And pierced are the feet that followed Me. But thine are whole, can he have followed far Who has not wound nor scar?