• “We are women, and my plea is Let me be a woman, holy through and through, asking for nothing but what God wants to give me, receiving with both hands and with all my heart whatever that is.” – Elisabeth Elliot

Guests by Martha Snell Nicholson


Pain knocked upon my door and said
That she had come to stay;
And though I would not welcome her
But bade her go away,

She entered in. Like my own shade
She followed after me,
And from her stabbing, stinging sword
No moment was I free.

And then one day another knocked
Most gently at my door.
I cried, “No, Pain is living here,
There is no room for more”.

And then I heard His tender voice,
” ‘Tis I, be not afraid”.
And from the day He entered in —
The difference it made!

For though He did not bid her leave,
(My strange, unwelcome guest,)
He taught me how to live with her.
Oh, I had never guessed

That we could dwell so sweetly here,
My Lord and Pain and I,
Within this fragile house of clay
While years slip slowly by!

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2 Responses to Guests by Martha Snell Nicholson

  • James Murdoch says:

    Since 1987 I have lived with chronic low back pain and mobility problems. In November 1989 I almost gave up on life but God's? presence is very real. This poem 'Guests' expresses my experience so well.

  • Randi F says:

    There are different kinds of pain. For me, it has been the pain of family that do not believe in God or Jesus, or betrayal by one who you should be able to trust. Jesus faced these kinds of pain even more than His physical pain and suffering, as bad as that was. I believe the pain of rejected love is greater than any other pain, but even that pain Jesus will carry for us if we rely upon Him and invite Him to live in our home at all times. I will follow Him forever and He will never leave me!

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  • “If we do not want those veils, He will clear them away. He has given us power of our wills. If the will be set towards beholding, looking, reflecting, then our Lord will see to the veils.” – Amy Carmichael

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Verse of the Day

He is despised and rejected by men, A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely He has borne our griefs And carried our sorrows; Yet we esteemed Him stricken, Smitten by God, and afflicted. — Isaiah 53:3-4 (NKJV)

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