Womens_Ministries

Being Your Best

A Woman's Guide to Personal Excellence

By Dorothy Eaton Watts

We will be presenting this booklet to you in several parts. We will run this series until we complete the booklet. If you missed any of the parts, you can catch up on the reading by checking our archive listing at the end of this article.

Chapter II

A SPIRITUAL WOMAN

It was a gray, cloudy Sunday in Belfast, Ireland. The Carmichael family were returning from church when they met an old woman carrying a heavy bundle.

“Look at that poor woman!” Amy said. “She needs help!” Running to her side, she offered, “Here, let me help you.”

Instantly two of her brothers were at her side, lifting down the heavy package from the woman’s back. One brother shouldered the bundle while Amy and the other brother took half of the woman’s feeble arms and steadied her as she walked. Respectable church folks frowned as they saw the Carmichaels assisting the disheveled old woman.

“It was a horrid moment,” Amy admitted afterwards. “We were only two boys and girl, and not at all exalted Christians. We hated doing it. Crimson all over (at least we felt crimson, soul and body of us), we plodded on, a wet wind blowing us about, and blowing too, the rags of that poor old woman, till she seemed like a bundle of feathers, and we unhappily mixed up with them.”

At that moment of embarrassment they came to a fountain beside the road, bubbling upward in the gray drizzle, and a verse of Scripture Amy had memorized flashed into her mind.

“Gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble; every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is. If any man’s work abide…”

So clearly came the words of 1 Corinthians 3:12-14 that Amy turned to see who had spoken. She saw nothing but the muddy street, people walking home from church, and the fountain bubbling in the mist.

“I said nothing to anyone,” Amy later wrote, “But I knew that something had happened that had changed life’s values. Nothing could ever matter again but the things that were eternal.”

Not long after that she felt that God was calling her to be a missionary. She spent the rest of her life, more than 50 years, as a singly missionary first in Japan and later in South India.

In Amy’s life I see nine characteristics of a godly woman. We can outline them using the letters of the word “s p i r i t u a l” as an acrostic.

S—Sense of the eternal. A spiritual woman will have her priorities in order, understanding that only what she has done for Christ will last. While attending a religious convention in Glasgow, Amy Carmichael joined a friend for lunch at a restaurant where the food was poorly cooked. Someone complained. Amy thought, what difference does that make in the light of eternity?

No longer after that, Amy’s mother took her shopping in Belfast for a new evening dress. The shopkeeper brought out the loveliest silks and satins. As Amy looked at the beautiful cloth, she remembered thinking, what are parties and fine clothes in light of eternity?

“Mother, I can’t do this,” Amy whispered. “I don’t want a new evening dress. Other things are now more important to me.” Embarrassed, her mother mumbled an apology to the shopkeeper, and they walked out.

In the light of eternity I wonder how important are some of the things on which I spend my time and money?
Lord, give me a sense of the eternal. Help me get my priorities straight.

P—Prayer is important. Prayer is vital to the life of a spiritual woman. To her, God is real—someone interested in all the circumstances of her life.

Becky Tirabassi, author of Releasing God’s Power, had very little time for God before attending a prayer seminar. One of the speakers said, “Prayerlessness is a sin.” Becky was shocked. As the truth of the statement dawned on her she thought, I make time for what I consider a priority. Where in all my activity is a time for God? Yet I say I love Him.

Before the seminar was over, Becky had decided to pray one hour every day. She has developed an eight-point plan that easily takes her through an hour of prayer, Bible study, and meditation every morning. In commenting in her diary about an hour she had spent in prayer, Amy Carmichael wrote: “The hour passed like five minutes.”

What in my life can be condensed or discarded so that I can spend an hour with my Lord each day?
Lord, forgive me for the sin of prayerlessness. Help me find time to spend with you.

I—Immersed in the Word. To the spiritual woman Bible study is not a tiresome chore, but one that she looks forward to with anticipation. She thinks, what message will God have for me today?

Becky Tirabassi keeps a notebook in which she records messages she gets from God through sermons as well as through her reading. Every day she reads at least one chapter from the New Testament, one from the Old Testament, and one from Proverbs.

Iona Richardson, author of Bouquets, With Love From Jesus, likes to make a verse of Scripture her own by paraphrasing it. She writes down a plan of action based on that verse and a prayer of response to the message she has received.

Susanna Wesley, mother of 19 children, still found time to spend two hours every day in Bible study. She had a set time when she put aside household chores and went to her room to study.

Ruth Bell Graham, wife of Evangelist Billy Graham, leaves an open Bible on the coffee table. That way, whenever she has a few moments, she can read a verse or two and relax. She also memorizes verses, repeating them as she drives, irons, or does other household tasks.
Thank you, Lord, for your Word. Help me plan a time every day when I can immerse myself in it.

R—Recognizes the importance of silence. Godly women obey the command “Be still, and know that I am God.” They take time not only to study and pray but also to listen to God’s voice.

Amy Carmichael had the habit of spending long periods in quietness after Bible study and prayer. Out of these periods of meditation came many of her poems and songs. Once when struggling with the thought of being single, she tells of going away alone to a cave in a mountain to pray and listen for the “still small voice.” In the solitude of her retreat God assured her, “None of them that trust in Me shall be desolate.” From there she went on to start Dohnavur Fellowship, which rescued many temple prostitutes.
Lord, I want to be a woman who takes time to listen to your voice. Help me learn how to enjoy solitude in the midst of my busy schedule.

I—Invites Jesus to walk with her in all the circumstances of her life. The Lord walks with her through the tough times of life as well as the easy times.

Ruth Graham has, though married, lived much of her life as a single mother of five. How has she survived? God has shared the tough times with her. She admits to crying over her Bible as she has sought to ease her loneliness and find answers to deal with disappointment of having two sons turn away from the Lord.

Ruth tells about one time when she stayed up all night out of concern for her son Ned. As she fellowshipped with the Lord, He led her to Philippians 4:6: “Have no anxiety about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God” (RSV).

She says, “Suddenly I realized the missing ingredient to my prayers had been thanksgiving. So I sat there and thanked God for all that Ned was and all he had meant to me through the years.…When we are most concerned, we should start thanking the Lord for the lessons he is teaching us through the tough times. And invariably it is through those tough times that the Scriptures really come to life” (Dale Hanson Burke, “Ruth Bell Graham: Tough and Tender Moments,” Today’s Christian Woman, Nov./Dec. 1991, p. 53).

T—Talks easily about the Lord and His goodness. The spiritual woman is not embarrassed to give a testimony in church or to ask God’s blessing on her food in a restaurant. It is as natural for her to talk about Jesus, as it is to talk about her children or a close friend.

Anne Hutchinson was a woman always ready to talk about the Lord. Women from Boston flocked to her home to hear her explain the Scriptures and share her experience with God. Sometimes as many as 80 women crowded into her house to learn about God’s grace and power. In the end she was banished from the colony for talking about the Lord.

If I were put on trial for speaking of the goodness of the Lord, I hope there would be enough evidence to convict me!
Lord help me be more like Anne Hutchinson, so excited about the reality of my experience with You that I must talk about it.

U—Understand God’s call. Great women of faith have always understood God’s call to service. They have sensed their place in the scheme of things, their part in God’s plan to save the human race.

Amy Carmichael tells about counseling with a friend and then going to her room to ask the Lord what He wanted her to do. She wrote to her mother, “As clearly as I ever heard you speak, I heard Him say, ‘Go ye.’ I never heard it just so plainly before; I cannot be mistaken, for I know He spoke. He says, ‘Go,’ and I cannot stay.”

Ruth Bell Graham was not called to be a cross-cultural missionary in some far-off corner of the globe, but to be a support to her famous evangelist husband. About this she says” “All my life, I had felt called for mission work there in China, and I only came to college to prepare myself for that work. But I think the Lord must have given me that intense longing for a purpose, so that I could have the understanding and the sense of fulfillment that I now receive from Bill’s work” (James Schaffer and Colleen Todd, Christina Wives, p. 63).
Lord, help me understand when You call me for a specific part of Your plan, and make me willing to follow Your directions for my life.

A—Awareness of God’s presence. The spiritual woman has a keen sense of God’s presence in her life. She is aware of what He is doing in the lives of her family, her church, and the political structures of the world. Through all the play and interplay of human events she can see God’s hand at work.

Ruth Graham could have become discouraged when two of her sons turned their backs on God for a time, but she held firmly to her faith in God, recognizing that He was working in their lives. She says, “Our children never outreach God’s reach…Sometime we forget God is omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, and eternal. Our children can run—but God knows where they are and God is watching over them” (Dale Hanson Burke, ibid.)

In a time of particular darkness after the death of a dear friend, Amy Carmichael wrote, “We have seen our God’s forethinking care for us proved in very many ways since that day of sudden desolation.” Amy was aware that no matter what the difficulty, God is still in control.
Lord, open my eyes that I might see Your hand at work in my life today. Help me never forget that You are in control, regardless of how things look.

L—Loves people. A woman who is close to God inevitably find herself loving all for whom He died, even the most unlovely.

Amy Carmichael loved the prostitutes, and Mother Teresa loves the castoffs of society; the destitute, dying, abandoned, and forsaken.

Mary Jo Copeland looked with compassion on the homeless of Minneapolis and started Sharing and Caring Hands.

Chessie Harris loved neglected children in America’s South and wanted to save them from pain, poverty, and despair. She began taking in foster children. Before she retired, Chessie had mothered more than 800 children!
Lord help me be a woman stirred with compassion for the needs of people, willing to reach out to others with Your love.

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