Article: A Mom Who Changed the World

At our state homeschooling convention last week I picked up a book about mothers of people who have impacted the world with the Gospel. I hoped it would hold
gems for me to share with you and I found one this morning in my reading.

You have probably heard of Amy Carmichael, a missionary to India in the first half of the Twentieth Century. She was an Irish girl from a prosperous family, the
oldest of seven who knew from an early age she would spend her life in service of her Lord. She wrote that her childhood was what prepared her to happily give up
her life for the less fortunate. Her mother, Catherine, modeled selflessness for her children. She practiced hospitality regularly and her children were impacted by
contact with godly people who came into their home. She cared for the needs of the less fortunate, often sending her children to take soup to the sick or needy. Amy
described her upbringing as " discipline balanced by buttered toast and raspberry jam in front of the nursery fire."

Yes, Catherine was a proper Victorian mother, but she also allowed a teenage Amy to minister in the slums of Belfast. When Amy felt a call to India she knew her
mother would pay a price for her call. In a letter explaining how the Lord was dealing with her she wrote, "My Precious Mother, have you given your child
unreservedly to the Lord for whatever He wills? O, may He strengthen you to say YES to Him if He asks something that costs." Catherine responded in a letter which
began with this poem:

My Own Precious Child,

He who hath led will lead

All through the wilderness,

He who hath fed will surely feed,

He who hath heard they cry

Will never close His ear,

He who hath marked they faintest sigh

Will not forget they tear.

He loveth always, faileth never,

So rest on Him today - forever.

END