Amy Carmichael founded the Donavour Fellowship in India. The purpose of Donavour was to shelter little girls from shameful abuse. The work was taxing, round-the-clock labor in a hot climate. She was bed-ridden for the last twenty years of her life. During that time she began to write. Before her injury she had been too active to write. Though she spent her entire missionary career of fifty-four years in India and was buried there under a simple bird bath for a grave marker, her writing and influence have traveled around the world and her books are continually reprinted.
In the crucible of ministry and suffering she wrote about the content of the heart. She wrote:
“If a sudden jar can cause me to speak an impatient, unloving word, than I know nothing of Calvary love, for a cup brimful of sweet water cannot spill even one drop of bitter water however suddenly jolted.”
When I first read that I felt compelled to call my Grandma Shipley and read it to her. When I read it she said; “What made you think of me when you read that?”
“I don’t know,” I said, “It just seemed like something you would like.”
She said; “I read that to you when you were small and I wrote those words in the flyleaf of the Bible I gave your mom when she graduated from high school.
Grandma has been with the Lord now for eight years, but when I remember her, my heart smiles. I picture the little green house on Auten Road in South Bend, I remember the smell of coffee, and grandma’s ready eagerness to talk about the things of the Lord right up until a few hours before she met the Lord face to face.
Father fill my heart full of things that are good today because I know that soon again I will be “bumped” and when it happens I want to spill “sweet water.”
Ken Pierpont
Riverfront Character Inn
Flint, Michigan
April 24, 2006
Dear Mr. Pierpont,
I really appreciate your blog, I have been blessed many a time by it. It is so down-to-earth. It is what I need from time to time.
Thank you for sharing this little tidbit of truth. I have never heard this before, but it is something that I struggle with. I work in construction, and sometimes I hear filth all day long. It is a test of faith, because then, when things don’t go well, I find myself thinking the same garbage I was so repulsed by. Amen to the prayer at the end of your post. Amen and Amen.
Dear Ken,
I remember it well. What a blessing to read your work. You have been gifted by God to share real things to help real people.
Love and Prayers,
Your Sis