Lisa Barry: When people who don't know Christ look at the suffering in this world, they conclude there is no God, because a true God would be powerful enough to make suffering go away. Well, not so with Glenda Revell. You'll find out why she chose to believe, even in the midst of an ugly childhood. That's what's coming up on this Wednesday edition of Gateway To Joy. Here's Elisabeth Elliot to get us started.

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 today in the studio with my dear friend, Glenda Revell of Smithfield, Virginia. Glenda has been telling us in the last couple of days some of her amazing story of the faithfulness of God, even in a home which was anything but Christian. A father who was an alcoholic; mother also alcoholic. Am I correct about your father?

Glenda Revell: My father was not an alcoholic.

Elisabeth Elliot: Your father was not alcoholic. But they were not Christians. This was not a Christian home. Her mother was not only an alcoholic, but also became very promiscuous and really hated you, didn't she, Glenda?

Glenda Revell: Yes, she did.

Elisabeth Elliot: I mean, it was your fault that you were born. Glenda's response is what I want you to understand. We were talking yesterday about suffering. Glenda said, "Everyone suffers." The great question is what?

Glenda Revell: Our response to the suffering.

Elisabeth Elliot: I would give a very simple definition of suffering. It's not original with me. I think it goes back several thousand years. It's not in the Bible. But suffering is having what you don't want or wanting what you don't have. You certainly experienced both kinds of suffering, didn't you? There were many things that you wanted. One of them was God. Someone to love you. You had a lot of things you did not want.

Glenda Revell: That's correct. When I look back on those years, I think perception is everything, and perspective. I'm so thankful that God gave me an eternal perspective. The Apostle Paul, who suffered all of those things that we talked about yesterday, said, "This light and momentary trouble is working for us a weight of glory."

Elisabeth Elliot: Far more exceeding and eternal.

Glenda Revell: That's right. Weight of glory. He also said in another passage, "The sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that shall be revealed in us." One of my favorite quotes is from Hugo Bassi's sermon in the hospital. This is what he said: "Measure thy life by loss instead of gain; not by the wine drunk, but the wine poured forth. For love's strength standeth in love's sacrifice, and whoso suffers most has most to give."

As I'm counseling younger women who come to me with their sufferings, I try to encourage them that by suffering they will have so much more to give. The people we know who minister to us are always people who have suffered deeply. So when I look back on my life, I really don't feel that I've suffered deeply. But I can thank God for what I have endured, because I see that it has given me, first of all, something that I can offer to God. You taught me that. You've taught me everything I know.

I can offer my suffering to God as a unique sacrifice. That meant the world to me when you taught me that, because I always wanted something that I could give to God that no one else could give. The only thing that I can give to God that's unique is my suffering. That's such an encouragement to me.

Then we can become broken bread and poured out wine for other people when we have suffered. If, however, we look at our suffering as a great injustice that has been wrought against us by wicked people, we become angry. That root of bitterness that the Bible speaks of grows up in our hearts. Then we become the foolish woman, who tears our house down with our own hands. I see that over and over in the letters I receive. The problems that women are dealing with in their homes many, many times spring from their own faulty attitudes.

Elisabeth Elliot: Now there's a Bible verse in Proverbs about a wise woman.

Glenda Revell: Yes. Proverbs 14:1: "The wise woman builds her house, but with her own hands the foolish one tears hers down." I think a foolish woman is a woman who has the world's attitude-has not had her thinking transformed by Christ-and who believes that she had rights and they were violated. Because of that, she can excuse her wrong attitudes, her anger, her rebellion. Because after all, "look how so and so treated me." The wise woman, I believe, receives and accepts from God what He has given.

Elisabeth Elliot: Now Glenda, you're going to be-I know that we've got a lot of listeners out there thinking, "Is this woman going to tell us that this terrible thing that has happened to me was given to me by God? What did He have to do with it?"

Glenda Revell: I have a quote here by George MacDonald. It's part of a poem that he wrote and it certainly says it much more eloquently than I could. "Thou workest perfectly. And if it seem some things are not so well, 'tis but because they are too loving deep, too lofty wise, for me, poor child, to understand their laws. My highest wisdom, half is but a dream; my love runs helpless like a falling stream. Thy good embraces ill; and lo, its illness dies."

Elisabeth Elliot: Please read it again. We can't absorb all that at once.

Glenda Revell: "Thou"-of course, speaking of God-"Thou workest perfectly. And if it seem some things are not so well, 'tis but because they are too loving deep, too lofty wise, for me, poor child, to understand their laws. My highest wisdom, half is but a dream; my love runs helpless, like a falling stream. Thy good embraces ill; and lo, its illness dies."

The Bible says that all things work together for good, fit together in a plan for good, to those who love God.

Elisabeth Elliot: Can't we find a few exceptions to that?

Glenda Revell: All things.

Elisabeth Elliot: All means all.

Glenda Revell: Do I believe that God was in the things that happened to me as a child? I believe that I live in a sinful, fallen world with sinful, fallen people. God takes those circumstances and redeems them, if we allow Him. A comprehended God is no God. I'm a mere mortal and I cannot understand all of the dealings of God. But I know this: He is love.

Elisabeth Elliot: Evelyn Underhill said, "If God were small enough to be understood, He would not be big enough to be worshipped."

Glenda Revell: Another quote I have here is by Reverend John MacDuff, who lived in the 18^th century. I love this. He says, "How it would keep the mind from its guilty proneness to brood and fret over second causes"-and I see a lot of that in the mail I get. "If only this hadn't happened to me! If only this person hadn't done this to me!" Brooding and fretting over second causes. "Were this grand but simple truth ever realized, that all that befalls us are integral parts in a stupendous plan of wisdom; that there is no crossing or thwarting the designs and dealings of God."

Elisabeth Elliot: That's wonderful. I think Samuel Rutherford uses almost the same metaphor, of the confused rollings and wheels of second causes. When we get angry at the person who has done us in, shall we say, it's very likely to move from anger against that person to anger at God. I get many letters, and I'm sure you do, too, from people who are really angry with God, because God has either not answered a prayer or He has answered it the wrong way or God has allowed something to happen.

The only thing I can think of to say to those dear people is "Do you know any other place in the universe to which you can turn, except to God?" There is no other refuge.

Glenda Revell: That's right. And I can be thankful that in those tender, early years of my life, God stripped away any other superficial refuge, so that I had nowhere else to turn but to Him.

Elisabeth Elliot: And you sat under that willow tree, and that was your little refuge, geographically and physically. That was where you talked to God, listened to God, recited those hymns that you'd learned in church.

Glenda Revell: Yes, I did. I think back about that very often, because I'm sure had anyone seen me, they would have thought, "That poor lonely little girl. She never has anyone to play with." My mother used to lock me out of the house all day. I couldn't go in. I would go to my neighbor's house to use the potty. Yet I look on those times and I'm so thankful that I had quietness and solitude. It permitted me to meditate on things that I'm sure I never would have thought of, had I been with other children all the time, had I had a happy home life. God has given far more to me than would have been given had my circumstances been ideal.

Elisabeth Elliot: He takes our sufferings, our loneliness, our deprivations, whatever it is that our listeners may be thinking of in their particular case today-He takes those and transforms them into something beautiful. I love that phrase that you read in the poem, "too loving deep, too lofty wise." You couldn't possibly have understood why these things were happening to you as a little child. But now you can look back and see how loving deep and how lofty wise God was. We wouldn't have you here today, Glenda, to help these other people, if you hadn't responded to God in faith.

Glenda Revell: I'm so thankful that He put that in my heart to respond that way. It certainly wasn't any indication of my goodness, but the goodness of God to give me that perception.

Lisa Barry: And all the glory goes to God. It's hard for me to imagine a person with so much faith at such a young age. But what a great example it is for all of us. In fact, Glenda's entire story is a great example, because so many of us think happiness is dependent upon getting everything we want in life.

For your own copy of GLENDA'S STORY, send $11, along with your request, to Gateway To Joy, Box 82500, Lincoln, Nebraska, 68501. Or call toll-free: 1-800-759-4JOY. That's 1-800-759-4569. Our Internet ministry address is gatewaytojoy.org.

Tomorrow we'll hear about something Glenda hated doing as a newlywed. Find out what that is next time on Gateway To Joy.