DON’T WASTE YOUR WOUNDS

“Suffering is never for nothing” Elisabeth Elliot

Join us for the April meeting as Debbie Morris speaks to us about using heartaches to help others.

    Vance Havner, a well-known North Carolina preacher, once said that God uses broken things. It takes broken soil to produce a crop, broken clouds to give rain, broken grain to give bread, broken bread to give strength. It is the broken alabaster box that gives forth perfume. Sitting alone on a cold iron bench in the desert, I listened to coyotes howl as I read aloud the verse engraved on our son’s memorial. “I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me.” This was our son’s life verse, but now it triggered another mind battle. Really, Lord? Really? Maybe I could feel Your strength if You would help me understand…
“WHY!” Why this? Why our family? Have we not faithfully served You, even when the cost was great? Have we not loved You enough, or prayed enough, or trusted You enough? Lord, please help me understand, so I can have peace. The Lord whispered to my soul, “I promised you peace that passes understanding, not peace because of understanding!”
On that same bench, in front of that same memorial, stood a forty-foot, three thousand-pound Saguaro Cactus, probably over 75 years old with a large, ugly gaping hole. As I stared inside that hole, God began to teach me a lesson about not wasting my wounds. Sometimes, God chooses to use the broken pieces of our lives to serve a greater purpose than the whole…even though we desperately beg for wholeness!

After being saved from an agnostic background, God allowed Debbie to serve alongside her husband in youth ministries in West Virginia, New York, Michigan, and North Carolina. Then, for thirty-three years her husband pastored in Arizona where God allowed Debbie to teach a ladies' Sunday school class and to host and speak at ladies’ meetings across the country.  She also taught in their Christian school as well
as in the public schools where she founded Bible clubs.   After her husband retired, they moved to the Triad to be near their daughter.

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