Kindling Words from God's Daughters

I love to read the stories of the people God has used powerfully throughout history.  And I especially get challenged when I see women of God who surrendered all to Him.    Their words are kindling to my spirit, starting fires in my heart and mind.  Here are five of my favorites.

Joan of Arc, mystic visionary, military leader, martyr, heroine of France:

“One life is all we have and we live it as we believe in living it. But to sacrifice what you are and to live without belief, that is a fate more terrible than dying. “"In God's name! Let us go on bravely!" 

Catherine Booth, co-founder of The Salvation Army:

“If we are to better the future we must disturb the present.”"Here is the reason why we have such a host of stillborn, sinewless, ricketty, powerless spiritual children. They are born of half-dead parents, a sort of sentimental religion which does not take hold of the soul, which has no depth of earth, no grasp, no power in it, and the result is a sickly crop of sentimental converts. Oh! the Lord give us a real, robust, living, hardy, Christianity, full of zeal and faith, which shall bring into the kingdom of God lively, well-developed children, full of life and energy, instead of these poor sentimental ghosts that are hopping around us."

Amy Carmichael, missionary to India, rescuer of children, founder of Dohnavur Fellowship:

“But God is the God of the waves and the billows, and they are still His when they come over us; and again and again we have proved that the overwhelming thing does not overwhelm. Once more by His interposition deliverance came. We were cast down, but not destroyed.”"Missionary life is simply a chance to die."

Corrie ten Boom, survivor of Nazi concentration camp, author of The Hiding Place:

“Hold everything in your hands lightly; otherwise it hurts when God pries your fingers open.”“Trying to do the Lord's work in your own strength is the most confusing, exhausting, and tedious of all work. But when you are filled with the Holy Spirit, then the ministry of Jesus just flows out of you.”

Isobel Kuhn, missionary to China and Thailand:

“I believe that in each generation God has called enough men and women to evangelize all the yet unreached tribes of the earth. It is not God who does not call. It is man who will not respond!”“The difficult lessons of 1942 taught me to fear leaning heavily on human props. I had surrendered husband, child, friends, all I possessed, long ago. But this was something deeper. This was relinquishing my rights to them. This was holding them, but on the open palm of my hand…. Affection, especially with intense natures… runs to excess if given free rein. Uncrucified love runs to inordinate affection and selfish possessiveness which blights rather than blesses.  When we allow the Lord to nail our affections to the cross (to use the scriptural metaphor), we do not cease to love. We love even more widely, but it is a love stripped of corrupting influences. Love is not killed – only the seed of corruption in natural affection is killed.”What about you?  Who has started fires in your heart and mind?