encouragement

I've been in a funk the last couple of days and I just don't know why. But I know it's a spiritual longing that I don't yet understand. So I'm waiting, praying and reading the words of Christ. John 14-16 are some of the most incredible chapters in the Bible - Jesus' very personal and last words with his disciples before His death. So read them and be encouraged!

Outside of Jesus and the Bible, 2 of my Christian heros are Mother Teresa and Martin Luther King, Jr. I know they're very well known, but every time I read something they wrote or said, I can feel the presence of Christ flowing from them, even now. They lived out the call of Christ so completely. So I'll share a prayer from Mother Teresa - I hope it will encourage you like it does me.

"Dear Lord, Help me to spread your fragrance wherever I go. Flood my soul with your Spirit and Life. Penetrate and possess my whole being so utterly that all my life may only be a radiance of yours.

Shine through me, and be so in me that every soul I come in contact with may feel your presence in my soul. Let them look up and no longer see me, but only you, oh Lord! Stay with me, then I shall begin to shine as you do, so to shine as to be a light to others. The light, oh Lord, will be all from you; none of it will be mine; it will be you shining on others through me. Let me thus praise you in the way you love best, by shining on those around me.

Let me preach you without preaching, not by words but by example, by the catching force, the sympathetic influence of what I do, the evident fullness of the love my heart bears to you. Amen."

What I love about Mother Teresa is that her words are preceded and backed up by her life of love and sacrifice. May our faith always produce these things!

One more Mother Teresa quote to think about for now:

"You must allow Jesus to use you without consulting you first.
You belong to Him, you are His and only His."

Love!