Character Connections ~ Millie Keith

I’m rereading one of my favorite childhood novels. It is called Millie’s Unsettled Season and it’s an adaption based off of several of Martha Finley’s novels. Although Millie’s story is set in the 1830’s, I have always felt a kinship with her. I even remember a childhood prayer where I prayed to “live a life of faith like Millie Keith.”

This first book in the series that I am reading has Millie’s family moving away from the home where Millie grew up to the frontier. Nothing in Pleasant Plains, Indiana is anything like the life Millie knew in Lansdale, Ohio; the place seems empty and barren and definitely devoid of everything familiar and, at first, Millie responds with a temper tantrum.

Sadly, I did the exact same thing four years ago when we moved from everything familiar to me in Greensboro, North Carolina to Baton Rouge, Louisiana. I was years removed from having read Millie’s books and rereading now has me wondering if maybe I would have been better off if I’d reread this book as we prepared to move.

One thing that has me especially humbled is the fact that Millie was thirteen in her book. I was eighteen when we moved. You would think I’d have been much more mature than I was.

I’m sorry to think of the pain I probably caused to so many, and I’m sure being so bitter about the move didn’t help me to make any quick friends once we did move.

God has matured and used me in so many ways here in Louisiana that I never would have let Him in North Carolina. (And of course I never would have encountered the same people there that live here!) It is humbling to see how much more God cares about the person I can become -the person He created me to be- and the people He wants me to touch than He does about my personal preferences at any given moment.

I’m so glad that God is so good and so willing to use me and shape my character even when I am so stubborn about it!

“God is more concerned with making us like Him, with making us holy, than with making us happy.”

~Janette Oke

“…be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is--his good, pleasing and perfect will.”

~ Romans 12:2

“…until Christ is formed in you.”

~ Galatians 4:19

Do you have a fictional character you feel connected to in a special way?

Have you ever seen in hindsight how the undesirable things that have happened to you were God’s hand at work?

Please share your stories in the comments! I love hearing them. It can be so encouraging to know one is not alone on this pilgrimage of life.

Be blessed, friends. :)

~ToriLynn

Prayer for Today, May 9, 2013

The Lord is my strength and shield. My ever present help in time of need. He is always with me; how can I not be happy, joyful, all the time? I have had an incredible day. I am so blessed.

 

Why so often do I long for more? Why do I not remember to revel in the little things that mean so much to my heart? A stranger’s smile, a friendly conversation, a rainstorm, a ray of sunshine… Why does my rebellious heart so often wish for more than the innumerable blessings it already holds?

 

Oh, dear Lord! That my heart would always be content with You and not caught up in the things of this world! Oh, that I would love and follow and serve You all of the time and not just when the mood strikes. Lord, make me a light in the darkness, a city on a hill, one who cannot and will not be silenced by the world, one whose sole focus is You and You alone. Lord, please, MAKE ME into the person You want me to be. I am not content to be discontent. I want to be satisfied by You. I know there is so much more to You than I can taste right now. And I want all of it. Everything good is from You, is IN You. “You are all I want. You are all I need. Everything my heart could hope for. I am longing for the Glory of You, Lord. ’Cause I know there’s so much more.”

 

“You make known to me the path of life;
    in your presence there is fullness of joy;
    at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”

Psalm 16:11(NIV)