Finish - Give Yourself The Gift Of Done Order Printed Copy
- Author: Jon Acuff
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About the Book
"Finish" by Jon Acuff is a self-help book that focuses on helping readers overcome perfectionism and finish the projects they start. Acuff provides practical strategies and insights to help readers reach their goals, embrace imperfection, and ultimately achieve success by completing tasks. The book encourages readers to take action, be persistent, and celebrate progress rather than getting stuck in the cycle of never finishing their projects.
Amy Carmichael
Born in Belfast Ireland, to a devout family of Scottish ancestry, Carmichael was educated at home and in England, where she lived with the familt of Robert Wilson after her fatherâs death. While never officially adopted, she used the hyphenated name Wilson-Carmichael as late as 1912. Her missionary call came through contacts with the Keswick movement. In 1892 she volunteered to the China Inland Mission but was refused on health grounds. However, in 1893 she sailed for Japan as the first Keswick missionary to join the Church Missionary Society (CMS) work led by Barclay Buxton. After less than two years in Japan and Ceylon, she was back in England before the end of 1894. The next year she volunteered to the Church of England Zenana Missionary Society, and in November 1895 she arrived in South India, never to leave. While still learning the difficult Tamil language, she commenced itinerant evangelism with a band of Indian Christian women, guided by the CMS missionary Thomas Walker. She soon found herself responsible for Indian women converts, and in 1901, she, the Walkers, and their Indian colleagues settled in Dohnavur. During her village itinerations, she had become increasingly aware of the fact that many Indian children were dedicated to the gods by their parents or guardians, became temple children, and lived in moral and spiritual danger. It became her mission to rescue and raise these children, and so the Dohnavur Fellowship came into being (registered 1927). Known at Dohnavur as Amma (Mother), Carmichael was the leader, and the work became well known through her writing. Workers volunteered and financial support was received, though money was never solicited. In 1931 she had a serious fall, and this, with arthritis, kept her an invalid for the rest of her life. She continued to write, and identified leaders, missionary and Indian, to take her place. The Dohnavur Fellowship still continues today.
Jocelyn Murray, âCarmichael, Amy Beatrice,â in Biographical Dictionary of Christian Missions, ed. Gerald H. Anderson (New York: Macmillan Reference USA, 1998), 116.
This article is reprinted from Biographical Dictionary of Christian Missions, Macmillan Reference USA, copyright © 1998 Gerald H. Anderson, by permission of Macmillan Reference USA, New York, NY. All rights reserved.
âAmmaiâ of orphans and holiness author
Amy Carmichael was born in Ireland in 1867, the oldest of seven children. As a teen, she attended a Wesleyan Methodist girls boarding school, until her father died when she was 18. Carmichael twice attended Keswick Conventions and experienced a holiness conversion which led her to work among the poor in Belfast. Through the Keswick Conventions, Carmichael met Robert Wilson. He developed a close relationship with the young woman, and invited her to live with his family. Carmichael soon felt a call to mission work and applied to the China Inland Mission as Amy Carmichael-Wilson. Although she did not go to China due to health reasons, Carmichael did go to Japan for a brief period of time. There she dressed in kimonos and began to learn Japanese. Her letters home from Japan became the basis for her first book, From Sunrise Land. Carmichael left Japan due to health reasons, eventually returning to England. She soon accepted a position with the Church of Englandâs Zenana Missionary Society, serving in India. From 1895 to 1925, her work with orphans in Tinnevelly (now Tirunelveli) was supported by the Church of England. After that time, Carmichael continued her work in the faith mission style, establishing an orphanage in Dohnavur. The orphanage first cared for girls who had been temple girls, who would eventually become temple prostitutes. Later the orphanage accepted boys as well.
Carmichael never returned to England after arriving in India. She wrote prolifically, publishing nearly 40 books. In her personal devotions, she relied on scripture and poetry. She wrote many of her own poems and songs. Carmichael had a bad fall in 1931, which restricted her movement. She stayed in her room, writing and studying. She often quoted Julian of Norwich when she wrote of suffering and patience. Many of Carmichaelâs books have stories of Dohnavur children, interspersed with scripture, verses, and photographs of the children or nature. Carmichael never directly asked for funding, but the mission continued to be supported through donations. In 1951 Carmichael died at Dohnavur. Her headstone is inscribed âAmmaiâ, revered mother, which the children of Dohnavur called Carmichael.
Carmichaelâs lengthy ministry at Dohnavur was sustained through her strong reliance upon scripture and prayer. Her early dedication to holiness practices and her roots in the Keswick tradition helped to guide her strong will and determination in her mission to the children of southern India.
by Rev. Lisa Beth White
âhappy wife, happy lifeâ - and other misleading advice to young husbands
The title read, âHow Do I Get My Husband to Be Less Passive?â Click. The author, a wife and clinical psychologist, addressed the common complaint that women of various ages bring to her: their husbands lacked passion for anything but the couch and the screen. These wives wanted to know how to get their men to do something other than stare at the television, laptop, or smartphone, and how to get them to initiate something other than physical intimacy. They wanted their men to plan dates, start conversations, play with the kids, stand up for themselves (at work) and for their wife (with the in-laws), or to show concern for daily decisions. The manly intentionality that had pursued these women during dating had dwindled in marriage. Age-Old Problem The complaint, of course, is nothing new. Paradise was lost when the first man took the easy path of appeasement in his marriage. The serpent hissed lies in her ear; he stood silently by. Instead of an uncomfortable moment with his wife, and then crushing the skull of her deceiver, he watched as she took a bite. Compromise bore twins, and he ate too (Genesis 3:6). âLasting joy in our marriages is found in living out the drama of Christ and his bride, not Adam and his.â And we see Adamâs passivity echoed in countless marriages today. The temptation to be emotionally and spiritually absent, when physically present, has merely changed hairstyles over time. The same unmanly repose still beckons men to recline in the passengerâs seat. God calls out to husbands today with the same question he asked in the garden: âAdam, where are you?â And where are we? Too often giving into the scheme that affords less responsibility and more opportunity to watch the game. Masculinity that leads through loving sacrifice  can feel like an endangered species. And some of the mantras given to me as a newly married man may have hurt, instead of helped, my enlistment into the active-duty husbandry put on display in Jesus Christ. Consider four naive, and easily misunderstood, words of counsel given to new husbands, even from well-meaning Christian brothers. âHappy Wife, Happy Lifeâ The advice could be redeemable. The husband should lavish his queen with love, finding a great deal of his joy in hers. And one could say it from an eternal perspective: Happy wife (in the Lord), happy life. But what is most often meant by this phrase cannot be missed: a manâs life is less miserable when his woman gets her way. Such deferment is tempting: no conflict, no unhappy bride, no blame. Just letting her have her way is much more comfortable than making unpopular decisions on weighty matters, that you think (and pray) are spiritually best for her and your family: Whether they be where your children go to school, what church you join, where you live next, when to have children, or countless difficult choices that require spiritual energy, courage, and faith. But Christ created men to initiate and bear responsibility. His glory is to sacrifice. His mission is to lead his wife and his family from the front, on his knees. Although his charge includes the flourishing of the wife, the health of our leadership does not depend solely upon the daily undulations of our brideâs earthly happiness, but on the consistency with which we obey our Master. You can have a happy, governing wife resulting in a shallow, resistance-free life, and end up with an unhappy Lord. In the end, a nearsighted âhappy wife, happy lifeâ mentality throws the toys in the closet to go outside and play. Happy wife, easier life  does not lead to happiness, but to a closet full of regret, bitterness, and selfishness, which we all must open eventually. It backfires on us, leaving even a growing number of unbelievers wondering how to get their men to be less passive. Lasting joy in our marriages is found in living out the drama of Christ and his bride, not Adam and his. âYour Spouse Is Your Best Friendâ âYou can have a happy, governing wife resulting in a shallow, resistance-free life, and end up with an unhappy Lord.â She is not just your BFF because marriage is not simply friendship . It isnât a symmetrical partnership in which the relational patterns are interchangeable. The elegance of the dance consists in the man leading assertively, lovingly, thoughtfully, and the woman following fearlessly, receptively, joyfully â which is much more than mere friendship. The dance is improper when the husband attempts to follow. Now, if we mean that she is the one person with whom you confide most, the one earthly person you treasure most, the one person with whom a day spent doing menial tasks is anything but wasted, then, yes, this is a glory. But our marriages are more than a flat partnership. The glory of a spouse is more than the glory of a friend. The miraculous event of God joining husband and wife together in a bond that none can break is a rose not to be hidden, even in the beautiful tulip-garden of friendship. The marriage drama enacts that of the Great Romance. This flower, by any other name, must smell distinctly sweet. To ballet is not to waltz. The moon is not the sun. The companion is not the spouse. âBe a Servant Leaderâ For sure, an aspect of this is incredibly right: Jesus came not to be served but to serve and give his life for many (Mark 10:45). That the husband should be like Jesus in such self-giving sacrifice is without question or asterisk. Being a servant leader is  great advice â when both words are kept together. Often, however, they are not. The paradox of servant leader  devolves, in some minds, into merely meaning servant : You sacrifice your convictions for any and all of her ambitions. You take on her calling, not because of exceptional circumstance but only because you wanted to lay your aspirations down for hers. You coddle her, never asking her to do anything that she does not already want to do â even if you think it best for her ultimate joy in the Lord. The good-intentioned servant (non)leader, in an honest attempt to love and serve his wife well, abdicates to a kind of service that undermines his call to be a husband and bear responsibility, take initiative, and feel the burden of the hardest decisions. I prefer sacrificial  leadership instead: âHusbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up  for herâ (Ephesians 5:25). It is a leadership that, while not relinquishing its responsibility or apologizing for its authority, sees leadership as a calling to inconvenience self first for the good of oneâs family and neighbor. âMarriage Is 50/50â Marriage, for the man especially, is not 50/50. Manhood doesnât require her to scratch your back before youâll scratch hers. Headship doesnât keep score. You donât go so far, and no farther, until she catches up. You donât limit your patience, kindness, gentleness, and goodness until she matches. A husbandâs love doesnât bear all things, believe all things, hope all things, endure all things only half the time . Husbands donât wait for reciprocation to initiate. âThe marriage drama enacts that of the Great Romance. This flower, by any other name, must smell distinctly sweet.â Jesus didnât wait for his bride to meet him halfway. His spouse didnât take half of the scourging or half of the cross. He, manly he, sacrificed all for her well-being â while she was yet a sinner. He gave all his life for hers. Nothing 50/50 about it. And sacrificial leadership is so happy in this love of Christ that we lay down our lives like he did â even when she isnât âholding up her end of things.â Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church.  We do not bring home the paycheck and expect the wife to pick up the remaining fifty percent of the relational tab with the kids. Marriages that start 50/50, often end 50/50 â splitting half of oneâs assets in divorce. Play the Man You Are âWhy did you wish me milder? Would you have me false to my nature? Rather say I, play the man I am.â âCoriolanus Our feminist-influenced, Bible-ignoring, headship-shaming society wishes real men to be milder. They wish you passive. They wish you silent. But God entrusts you to speak, to sacrifice, to crush serpents. He calls you to be true to your nature â the one he gave you â and play the man that you are. And that man is not timid, not unassertive, not feeble in the faith: âBe watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men , be strongâ (1 Corinthians 16:13). It cannot be asked of that man, âHow can I get my husband to be less passive?â That man, as C.S. Lewis depicts, goes into battle first and retreats last. He, for truthâs and honorâs sake, âstands fast and suffers long.â God calls you to increasingly be this man, and provides the strength for you to be him when you feel weak. Stand upright, then, be strong, after the true strength and example of Jesus Christ. For your King, your wife, and your future kin.
