Hitting The Mark

Have you ever tried to hit a bullseye with a bow and arrow? Are you content just to hit the target? I pray this life testimony helps the reader to see that as a young girl, I didn't even know there was anything to aim for. Sin is defined as "missing the mark".......boy, my arrows were flying everywhere!!!! Before I begin, I'll show you the bullseye:

"The benediction that falls upon the homes of a country is like the gentle rain that descends among the hills. A thousand springs are fuller afterward, and along the banks of a thousand streamlets flowing through the valleys the grass is greener and the flowers pour out richer fragrance.

Homes are the springs among the hills, whose many streamlets, uniting, form like great rivers society, the community, the nation, the Church. If the springs run low, the rivers waste; if they pour out bounteous currents the rivers are full. If the springs are pure the rivers are clear like crystal; if they are foul the rivers are defiled. A curse upon homes sends a poisoning blight everywhere; a blessing sends healing and new life into every channel.

Homes are the divinely ordained fountains of life. It is not by accident that men live in families rather than solitarily. The human race began in a family, and Eden was a home. The divine blessing has ever rested upon nations and communities just in the measure in which they have added to these original institutions and have kept marriage and the home pure and holy; and blight and curse have come just in the measure in which they have departed from these divine models, dishonoring marriage and tearing down the sacred walls of home.

Back of the home lies marriage. The wedding day throws its shadow far down the future; it may be, ought to be, a shadow of healing and benediction.

Marriage is intended to bring joy. The married life is meant to be the happiest, fullest, purest, richest life. It is God's own ideal of completeness. It was when He saw that it was not good for man to be alone that woman was made and brought to him to supply what was lacking. The divine intention, therefore, is that marriage shall yield happiness and that it shall add to the fullness of the life of both husband and wife; that neither shall lose, but that both shall gain. If in any use it fails to be a blessing and to yield joy, and a richer, fuller life, the fault cannot be with the institution itself, but with those who, under its shadow, fail to fulfill its conditions."

"The carpenter works in wood, the mason works in stone, the smith works in iron, the artist works on canvas, the the home-maker works on immortal lives . The wood or the stone or the iron or the canvas may be marred, and it will not matter greatly in fifty years; but let a tender human soul be marred in its early training, and ages hence the effects will still be seen. Whatever else we slight, let it never be our home-making. If we do nothing else well in this world, let us at least build well within our own doors. "Homemaking" by J.R. Miller

BULLSEYE!!! 60 years old and looking backwards....wouldn't it have been wonderful to have known these truths in our youth? How much heartache and trouble would it have prevented? But it is never too late....marriage is a sanctifying experience. God uses each partner as sandpaper for the other, sanding away all the layers of dirt and grime that we can bring into our homes. The sandpaper helps our arrows to shoot straight!

"And they shall be of Thee, that shall build the old waste places; Thou shalt raise up the foundations for many generations, and Thou shalt be called the repairer of the breach, and the restorer of the paths to dwell in." Isaiah 58:14

Lets rebuild, Lets restore.....for generations to come. Now I'm really ready to show you how I found the target.