A Quiet Heart

This past Friday with friends I was bemoaning (yet again) how hard I'm finding it to keep up with life lately, and how each week something gets put on the back burner. Reading over some of the titles on my hostess's shelves, I happened upon a spine that caught my eye and heart.

I hope you don't mind if I share an excerpt from Elisabeth Elliot's book, Keep a Quiet Heart:

Jesus, in the unbroken intimacy of His Father's love, kept a quiet heart. None of us possesses a heart so perfectly at rest for none lives in such divine unity, but we can learn a little more each of what Jesus knew... He taught us to work and watch but never to worry, to do gladly whatever we are given to do, and to leave all else with God.

Purity of heart, said Kierkegaard, is to will one thing. The Son willed only one thing: the will of His Father. That's what He came to earth to do. Nothing else. One whose aim is as pure as that can have a completely quiet heart, knowing what the psalmist knew: "Lord, You have assigned me my portion and my cup, and have made my lot secure" (Psalm 16:5). I know of no greater simplifier for all of life...

A quiet heart is content with what God gives. It is enough. All is grace...

God came down and lived in this same world as a man. He showed us how to live in this world, subject to its vicissitudes and necessities, that we might be changed - not into an angel or a storybook princess, not wafted into another world but changed into saints in this world. The secret is Christ in me, not me in a different set of cirumstances. (pp:17-20)

Clearly I need this book.

All is grace.