I wrote this last year and had been keeping it so that I might post it one day. Here goes..
Last Monday afternoon I finally finished reading “Faithful Women and Their Extraordinary God” by Noel Piper. Now granted it has taken me since the beginning of the school year to finish it was God’s timing that I picked up the book when I did. The last chapter was on Helen Roseveare. It began with:
But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish , in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness from God that depends on faith-that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.
Philippians 3:7-11
I knew right away that this was going to be some good stuff! I reread this chapter Friday (April 2008) on the way to Nashville just trying to soak it all in again. I wanted to share some excerpts.
“Helen knew she was called to missions. She felt this call so strongly that it was difficult for her to understand why every Christian wasn’t preparing for missions.”
As she went on in life she “was suffering from overwork and strain…I thought this exhaustion meant spiritual failure”.
“Years later, she wrote that she had misunderstood in those early years what it meant to grow in the Christian life. She had thought it should be a constant climb, achieving ever greater heights until one finally reached the mountain’s peak. At that later time, with the perspective of years and maturity, she knew that life is not just one peak, but a range, with valleys between the mountains.”
“Life became a living nightmare, but we had to go on living. Whenever we could, we met together…to pray and read the Word of God and sing his praises, and so we kept sane, and God graciously replaced fear with peace.” (Secret Church)
She said, "If we understood the Scriptural teaching on the need of Holiness in the life of every believer, we should not need to plead for missionaries."
"It doesn't matter whether we travel 6,000 miles or just twenty minutes from home...What matters is whether the people we meet matter to us as much as they matter to God."
Helen is a sold out believer who, still today, is sharing the gospel. She was born in 1925 in Haileybury, England. She knew at a very young age that she was being called to the mission field. When she had to be away from the mission field, her assigned territory, she continued to support missionaries monetarily. Lord, may we be used as vessels to bring you glory while sharing the gospel with ALL nations.
