Stepping Heavenward

My eyes filled with tears and my heart overflowed with thanksgiving to the Lord for the timely posts of one of my very dearest friends.(You can check out her blog on the left column of mine...under adoption "K and W")She shared a couple of quotes from one of my favorite books of all time..."Stepping Heavenward" by Elizabeth Prentiss. Though I may not have a baby, I have two new "big bundles" and her words ring just as true today as they did the first time I read them and the time after that, and the time after that! (HINT...if you do not have this book...buy it now!:))

I am going to freely copy and paste from my precious friend's blog (thanks for the time saver, Wendy!:)) and hope you are blessed too. Or, even better, head over to her blog and hear how God has been working in their family as they have added two new, precious little ones through foster adoption (if your heart is not warmed to adoption by what she shares...you need to make sure it's still ticking! :)).

The following is a journal entry:

"It is not always easy to practice as it is to preach. I can see in my wisdom forty reasons for having four children and no more. The comfort of sleeping in peace, of having a little time to read, and to keep on with my music; strength with which to look after Earnest's (her husband) poor people when they are sick; and, to tell the truth, strength to be bright and fresh and love able to him--all these little joys have been growing very precious to me, and I must now give them up. I want to do it cheerfully and without a frown. But I love to have my own way, and that at that very moment I was asking God to appoint my work for me, I was secretly marking it out for myself. It is mortifying to find my will less in harmony with HIS than I thought it was and that I want to prescribe to Him how I shall spend the time, and the health, and the strength that are His, not mine. But I will not rest till this struggle is over, till I can say with a smile, "Not my will! Not my will! But Thine!"

And, in another section of the book she says of her new baby:

"Here is a sweet, fragrant mouth to kiss; here are two more feet to make music with their 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 tenent. I may see less friends, but I have gained one dearer to 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 lifelong prayers! O, how rich I am, how truly, how wonderously blest!"

Amen!!!!