"You Will Have to Feed Your Own Soul"

 "If you come here to minister," Mrs. Ambrose remembered an old pastor at Pine Ridge telling her and her husband when they moved there, "you will have to feed your own soul."

Sitting in a recliner recuperating after my surgery, I listened to our pastor's wife telling story after story, and this little anecdote stood out to me. 

Her stories feed my soul--such as the one about Kate Kindle, a Pine Ridge Christian whose dad, when she was young, accidentally killed her mother while he was drunk. He never did go to jail for it, as the prosecution got him off, Mrs. Ambrose said. 

Later in life Kate's dad was saved from his sin, and despite a metal plate in his leg after an axe accident, he would walk through the winter cold three miles every Sunday morning to start the fire at the church.

That kind of story feeds my soul. 

It teaches overcoming and endurance.

 

Our churches here on the reservatins are small and don't have many established Christians in them. Our ministry is outreach. If we want something out of the services, we have to put something into them. 

So we must feed our own soul--as the pretty photo my sister Dorcas sent so well illustrates--with God's Word, and with God's love, and with other wholesome and good things.

I listen online to Beavertown God's Missionary Church every Sunday. The morning and evening music this last Sunday really ministered to me, with singers from Pennsylvania to Crooked Tree, Belize, and colors from ivory white to ebony black,

and instruments from piano to guitar. 

One way I feed my soul is to simply look for beauty in what God has placed around me. 

Saturday was just an amazingly beautiful day with a gorgeous sunrise that we could enjoy from our deck. 

I go out and stand still and think about God, and revel in Him and His wondrous works.

I read books for a couple hours a day in the afternoon when I make myself go rest after surgery--books like Yours Till Heaven, the beautiful story of Charles and Susanna Spurgeon's love, marriage, and intertwined ministry (she helped him with most of his sermons!);

Indigenous Faith, required reading by SIM;

The Despicable Missionary, a story of a Christian girl in Pakistan;

Heart Bridge, about the CAM-run Nathaneal Orphanage in Romania;

The Last Rescue, about an injured Navy Seal;

and Mother Mason, a book my sister Kezia sent me, an adorably relatable, old fashioned story for light reading when I just need some laughs.

We feed our souls with work in the gardens and helping one another and praying constantly--every day and every night.

Nights like this, I am awake long into the wee hours of the morning, wide awake, and I lift to God so many needs, holding loved ones up to Him as I lie in bed with wide open eyes, wondering why I can't sleep after being on my feet all day till 5 in the evening--picking beans, doing laundry, freezing beans, making two batches of goat cheese.

I was so tired I nearly fell asleep before supper, but made myself stay awake so I could sleep tonight--and then didn't. I was fighting some symptoms that kept me wakeful, and I prayed. I drank a lot and took several things to help.

Jesus, I need Your touch!

And He touched me. 

I go out to look at the clouds scudding across the moon, (my daughter Crystal who is away on a trip driving Amish messaged to look at the moon!) and I lift my prayer where no ceiling hinders it--though prayers have a wonderful way of rising straight through the highest and toughest ceiling. Prayers have no boundaries unless there is sin in our lives, and even then, humble prayer is the answer. 

Earlier this evening, I sat down at the piano and chose a song to play, "He Is Lord," with the verses as well as the chorus we all know. 

"Emptied of His glory, God became a man,

To walk on earth in ridicule and shame.

A Ruler, yet a Servant; a Shepherd, yet a Lamb;

A Man of Sorrows, agony and pain.

He is Lord!"

I worship.

Earlier today, another hymn was going through my mind--feeding my soul.

Dear Lord and Father of mankind, forgive our foolish ways.

Reclothe us in our rightful minds, 

In purer lives Thy service find,

In deeper reverence praise.

Drop Thy still dews of quietness, till all our strivings cease.

Take from our souls the strain and stress

And let our ordered lives confess

The beauty of Thy peace.

Breathe through the heats of our desire Thy coolness and Thy balm;

Let sense be dumb, let flesh retire,

Speak through the earthquake, wind, and fire

O still, small voice of calm!

 I feed my soul

--with music--

good books--

prayer--

God's Word--

 sunsets--

 flowers--

 and God's love and grace!

And my soul is fed.