Lisa Barry: Today on Gateway to Joy, we're going to hear a powerful testimony of someone a lot like you and me. It's the story of a woman who had dreams that were shattered-dreams that she felt she was entitled to. We'll find out what she did about those feelings and how her example can help each one of us next on Gateway To Joy. Here's Elisabeth Elliot.

Elisabeth Elliot: "You are loved with an everlasting love." That's what the Bible says. "And underneath are the everlasting arms." This is your friend Elisabeth Elliot, talking with you again today about the subject of anger.

So many times I've heard from people who were really quite angry with God. That seems to me to be a pitiful situation to find oneself in, because one has nowhere else to turn. I've had such a wonderful letter from a woman was very angry and came to the point of acceptance. Let me read this.

"My mother died of cancer at the age of 59, almost seven years ago, when I was 31. I had just been married three months prior and had also moved out of state about a year earlier. Besides being my best friend and the most important person in my life, my mother was a very eager grandmother. She even picked out her grandmother name, 'Tana,' before her first grandchild was even conceived.

I was able to help care for my mother during her last month and a half. But during that time, I was just coping moment to moment. It wasn't until I returned to my home with my new husband that it all hit me. Shortly after my mom's death, I became pregnant. Very excited about it all, my husband and I plunged into parenthood with vigor.

But I still couldn't shake my sadness and my anger. I was sad that my mother, Tana, would never get to meet my child, and angry at her and at God for letting this happen. I struggled with depression and anger for three years through the birth of my two sons, with so many questions and so many aspects of my faith turned upside down. This was the first time my faith had ever been tested, and I didn't like it one bit. It just wasn't fair. I'd see other young mothers out with their kids and Grandma and I would just crumple up inside.

After three years of this, my husband encouraged me to seek counseling. The counselor helped in validating my feelings, because I was beginning to think there was something very wrong with me. But he assured me that what I was going through was perfectly understandable. He still couldn't give me any answers to my questions or assuage my anger."

Now I'm going to put in my own little two-cents' worth here. Did you notice that she said the counselor helped her to validate her feelings? "He assured me that what I was going through was perfectly understandable." Can you imagine paying money and taking time to have somebody tell you that what you're going through is understandable? As she says, this man couldn't give her any answers.

"Last fall," she said, "while returning from dropping my boys off at preschool, I was listening to WCHR. They were airing your program, which I had come to really enjoy. But that day you were talking about the loss of your first husband. You hit me right between the eyes when you quoted Amy Carmichael's poem about accepting the tragedies of our life as gifts from God. Accepting the tragedies of life as gifts from God. I wish I could remember the way it went.

Then you hit me right in the gut when you challenged me, as I sat in my car in the driveway to my home, to say to God, 'Lord, I never would have wanted any of us this to happen, but I accept it.' With the tears rolling down my cheeks, I finally let go of this issue. I told God that I accepted this in my life as a gift from Him. Just like you said, I told Him that I would never have wanted to lose my mother at such a precious time of our lives, but I accepted it because I knew that He would use it to make me a better Christian, a better witness and a better friend to those who found themselves in the same dilemma.

You know what? When I got past me, I realized that my mother, for very similar reasons, was a wonderful Christian, a wonderful witness, and a wonderful friend to those who had sadness. She lost her mother the same year I was born. Praise God! Only He could weave such a tapestry.

Since that wonderful morning, I still feel sadness and the loss of my dear mother, but"-and here's the real kernel of the matter-"the anger is gone." "I still feel sadness and the loss of my mother, but the anger is gone. Now there is joy in its place, and excitement, because suddenly the Holy Spirit is working in my life as He has never worked before. Once you helped me to reopen that door, the Lord's love and healing flowed in like a flood. Thank you for sharing your pain and your wisdom, Mrs. Elliot. It has made an immeasurable difference in my life."

Well, I thank you, dear Megan, for writing out that lovely testimony. And I thank God that there are those who do have ears to hear. I pray continually that the Lord will give me the words to speak and that He will anoint those words as only the Holy Spirit can do-to drive them into your heart and to transform your life.

I hope that many of my listeners are familiar with Francis Thompson's beautiful poem called "The Hound of Heaven." I want to read a little bit of it to you. This is a story of a man who was running away from God, doing everything he could to get rid of God.

"I fled Him down the nights and down the days. I fled Him down the arches of the years. I fled Him down the labyrinthine ways of my own mind. In the mist of tears, I hid from Him; and under running laughter. Up visted hopes I sped, and shot precipitated down titanic glooms of chasmed fears. From those strong Feet that followed, followed after, but with unhurrying chase and unperturbed pace, deliberate speed, majestic instancy, they beat. And a voice beat more instant than the feet. All things betray Thee, who betrayest me. I pleaded outlaw-wise by many a hardened casement, curtained red, trellised with intertwining charities. For though I knew His love who followed, yet was I sore adread, lest having Him I must have naught beside."

I skip quite a bit of this. But here's a phrase that caught me. "Fear wist not to evade as Love wist to pursue." The word "wist" is an old English word. It simply means "knew." "Fear knew not to evade." Fear did not know how to evade as well as Love knew how to pursue. So in spite of the man's fears that he might lose everything if he gave himself to God, God continued with unhurrying pace, majestic instancy, to follow him-to follow and follow and follow. This man goes through all kinds of ways of trying to get rid of this Hound of Heaven that comes after him.

"I laughed in the morning's eyes. I triumphed and saddened with all weather. Heaven and I wept together, and its sweet tears were salt with mortal mine. Against the red throb of its sunset heart, I laid my own to beat and share commingling heat. But not by that was eased my human smart." That's not the way to get rid of your own pain. "In vain my tears were wet on Heaven's gray cheek."

Oh, I hate to miss all this. I hate to have to turn the pages. But this is the most important part of the whole poem. God finally catches him, the Hound of Heaven, and He says, "Alack, thou knowest not how little worthy of any love thou art. Whom wilt thou find to love ignoble thee, save only Me? All which I took from thee, I did but take not for thy harms, but just that thou might seek it in My arms."

I go back to the letter that I read at the beginning. The lady who had lost her mother just at the time of her baby's birth, was it cruel of God to take her mother at that time? "Just that thou might seek it in My arms. All which I took from thee, I did but take not for thy harms, but just that thou might seek it in My arms." She found a refuge in the everlasting arms. "All which thy child's mistake fancies as lost, I have stored for thee at home. Rise, clasp My hand and come." That's God speaking to you and me.

Here's the last stanza: "Halts by me that footfall. Is my gloom after all shade of His hand, outstretched caressingly? Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest, I am he whom thou seekest. Thou dravest love from thee, who dravest me."

Are you angry at God today? Are you driving away His love as He follows with unperturbed pace, follows, follows after you? Is your gloom, after all, just the shade of His hand outstretched, caressing you? Don't be angry at God. He is our only refuge. He loves you with an everlasting love.

Lisa Barry: What a comforting way to end today's program. And if you're going through a trial that seems to hem you in on every side, then let me suggest a book that has helped thousands of people. It's called A PATH THROUGH SUFFERING. It's written by a person who has been there-Elisabeth Elliot. If you'd like to purchase this book, the cost is $14. You can send that, along with your request, to Gateway To Joy, Box 82500, Lincoln, Nebraska, 68501. Or call 1-800-759-4JOY. That's 1-800-759-4569. Our Internet ministry address is gatewaytojoy.org. Gateway To Joy has been a production of Back to the Bible.

Be with us again tomorrow when Elisabeth wraps up this series on anger with a few important thoughts. That's next time on Gateway To Joy.