​Our Heavenly Father gives us many things to be grateful for. Just take a moment and make a mental list of those things you can thank God for.

​Your list probably included some of the following: family, friends, a warm house, food, salvation, etc. These things are easy to be thankful for, but did your list include: siblings that are difficult to work with? A little brother or sister who has a tendency to get into your things? Disappointment? Loss? Being sick? Those who persecute you and revile you?

“And now, Lord, what wait I for? My hope is in Thee.”—Psalm 39:7
 
Have you ever heard a single girl say something to this effect: “I’m waiting for the Lord to bring me a husband.” Probably most of us have. In fact, we may have even thought something like that ourselves! And frankly, for many of us, there’s truth to the statement. We are waiting for the Lord to bring the right man to be our husband. God’s best is certainly worth waiting for! However, I’d like to share some thoughts that the Lord has been impressing on my heart lately. I think that by telling ourselves (and others) that we’re “waiting,” we could potentially slip into a mindset that keeps us from using our “single” years fully for the glory of God. 

Dearest Sisters,
​
For the past year or so, God has been laying on my heart the importance of faithfulness to Him. I’d like to share with you some gleanings from the life of an ordinary man who held an ordinary job—yet he served an extraordinary God.

​What will you be remembered for after you breathe your last breath? It is a sobering and difficult question. Will it be your stylish clothing or your quick wit? Will it be your wall of accomplishments or your trophies of praise? Will it be your pile of possessions or your pretty hair? Probably it will be none of those things, but rather something related to who you are on the inside. But how does this inner character manifest itself outwardly in a life? We can't see inside and know what the heart and mind of a person is. Most often we see the inner workings of the heart by the outer workings of the hands and mouth. Yes, it is often your good works that show your good heart—a heart made good by the presence of the Holy Spirit. Ruth, Tabitha, Priscilla, Mary, Tryphena, Tryphosa, Lydia, Sara, and Phebe were all known for their good works. In fact good works can be used of God in a great way. Besides giving you true, enduring beauty, your good works also give God glory. What a high privilege and joy, and yet there is more too that God speaks regarding good works. Come, let us find the path the Virtuous Woman walked before us as God speaks to us the truth about the purpose and plan He has for our lives, for our works are writing our epitaph.

I have never been a great gardener. It is partly because I don't have a natural knack for it and mostly because I rarely take the time to actually plant anything. You don't reap if you don't sow! One year though I read a book on wide raised-bed gardening, and it had great pictures and compelling text and inspired me to try. Could a rookie grow produce like that bountiful harvest pictured in the book? Judging from what that plot of ground in our backyard had previously yielded, one would have had many doubts. ​

​One day I was walking down the hallway in my home in Ohio singing, “He has made me strong. He has made me strong. I will rejoice for He has made me strong….” Now I often do sing as I go about my day, and it is not unusual for me to mix up words from various songs like I had done in the above example where the song actually says, “He has made me glad. He has made me glad. I will rejoice for He has made me glad.” The funny thing is I didn’t even realize that I had made an error in the lyrics until I was thinking about writing this down, but the mistake turned out to be a good thing because God taught me much by it.

​As I was singing, all of a sudden, I came to a screeching halt as the question, “How has He made me strong?” flashed through my mind. Almost as quickly the answer came: by carrying burdens—weights. Wow! There was a twofold meaning right away in my heart as I stood there in the hallway.