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About the Book
"Reigning in Life as a King" by John Osteen is a Christian self-help book that teaches readers how to live a victorious life by embracing their identity as a child of God. Osteen emphasizes the power of faith and positive thinking, encouraging readers to overcome obstacles and achieve success in all areas of life. The book offers practical insights and strategies for living a life of purpose, abundance, and fulfillment.
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
you donât have to get married to be happy
You donât have to get married to be happy. In fact, until we realize that we donât have to get married to be happy, weâre really not ready to marry. Disclaimer: I am now happily married. If youâre single, you may be ready to click away, and I can understand why. Too many married people have too much to say about singleness. To be sure, not every married person knows your particular pain and circumstances, but some do. And they may have a perspective on singleness, dating, and marriage that none of your single friends have. I was drunk in love more than once, infatuated in dating, mesmerized by marriage. I started dating in middle school, followed by one long serious relationship after another through high school and college. I thought I would be married by 22, and instead I got married almost a decade later. I said things I wish I could unsay, and crossed boundaries I wish I could go back and rebuild. Iâm not some married guy writing to single you. Iâm writing to single me. I know him better than I know my wife â his weaknesses, his blind spots, his impatience â and I have so much good news for him. And for you. When I say that you donât have to be married to be happy, I say that as someone who devoured romance looking desperately for lasting joy â and who knows what it feels like to end up further from it after each breakup. Does Marriage Mean Happiness? One of the greatest hurdles to getting married is our obsession with getting married. We too easily believe the lie that life will never be as good as it could have been if we never get married. The Bible actually says the opposite of that, even though it has many good things to say about marriage. âTo be truly happy in marriage, it cannot be the ultimate source of our happiness.â The apostle Paul celebrates singleness over  marriage: âI wish that all were as I myself am. . . . To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is good for them to remain single, as I amâ (1 Corinthians 7:7â8). According to him, we donât ever have to be married to be truly and deeply happy. In fact, marriage may actually threaten the only thing that will make us happy (1 Corinthians 7:32â35). Itâs not a command (1 Corinthians 7:6), he says, but counsel from someone who wrote half of the books in the New Testament. Elsewhere, he also celebrates love and marriage as much as anyone in Scripture (Ephesians 5:25â33). But what he wrote about singleness has everything to do with our desires to be married. You donât have to get married to be happy, but to be truly happy in marriage â and in life â marriage cannot be the ultimate source of your significance or happiness. To be truly happy with a husband or wife, you must be happier in Someone else first. You must be most satisfied in Him. Lonely Hunt for Happiness Romantic love is a heart terrorist unless it is anchored in a higher love. Jesus warns the not-yet-married, âWhoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of meâ (Matthew 10:37). Whoever loves future husband or wife more than me is not worthy of me.  Jesus, why would you pit my love for you against my love for my parents, or my spouse, or my children? Because even the best love here pales in comparison to that love, and any love that competes with our love for him jeopardizes our joy. Elisabeth Elliot writes, âThe cross, as it enters the love life, will reveal the heartâs truth. My heart, I knew, would be forever a lonely hunter unless settled âwhere true joys are to be foundââ ( Passion and Purity , 41). âThe happier you are in God before you are married, the happier youâll be with someone else when you get married.â Donât recklessly chase marriage for things you will only fully find in God. Fullness of joy is not found at that altar, and pleasures forevermore are not lying in the marriage bed. No, Scripture sings about a higher love and greater joy, âYou make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermoreâ (Psalms 16:11). A Lamp to My Heart Jesus tells a story about ten women waiting for the bridegroom, each carrying a lamp while they wait (Matthew 25:1). Five brought extra oil to keep their lamps lit, while the other five brought lamps, but no oil. Both sets of lamps burned brightly for a while, but as the bridegroom finally arrived â when the women needed the lamps most â five were left in the dark and out of the marriage feast (Matthew 25:10). The lamps illustrate, among other things, the difference between falling in love and staying in love. It doesnât take much at all to start a romantic flame, but it is much harder to sustain it through suffering, disappointment, and conflict. The happiest marriages have storehouses of spiritual oil other marriages have never known. Their love isnât fueled by physical attraction or relational chemistry, but by a mutual affection for and devotion to Christ. The happier you are with God before youâre married, the happier you will be with someone else if and when youâre married. The only people who will make you truly happy in marriage will love Jesus more than you. And the only people whom you will make truly happy in marriage are people you love less than you love Jesus. Thatâs true for every single person. You Need to Fall in Love You donât have to get married to be happy, but you do need to fall in love. When Jesus was asked about the most important command in the Bible, he answered, âYou shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mindâ (Luke 10:27). To find the love your soul longs for, you give your heart first to God, not to a husband or wife. The best way to pursue the marriage you want today is to pursue God  with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. Again, Elliot writes, âWhen obedience to God contradicts what I think will give me pleasure, let me ask myself if I love Him. If I can say yes to that question, canât I say yes to pleasing Him? Canât I say yes even if it means a sacrifice? A little quiet reflection will remind me that yes to God always  leads in the end to joy. We can absolutely bank on thatâ ( Passion and Purity , 90). âThe best way to pursue the marriage you want today is to pursue God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength.â Ten thousand years from now, your marriage may be just a sweet, but short sticky note in the massive filing cabinet of our happy marriage with Jesus. On our ten-thousandth anniversary with Christ, how will you think about your earthly marriage? How will you think about your current boyfriend or girlfriend (or crush)? After centuries without any confusion or fear or sadness, how will you reflect on your days of heartache and loneliness here? The painful desires and waiting will still have been very real, but now small and insignificant compared with the perfect, seamless love and happiness we will enjoy forever. Donât wait to figure out the source of your happiness until you find a husband or wife. Wait to find a spouse until youâve figured out the true source of happiness. If we knew just how happy Jesus would make us, we would stop looking so desperately for that happiness in a husband or wife. And then we just might be truly happy with that husband or wife one day.
