The Cry from the Basement

Have you ever prayed, “Lord, what is Your purpose for my life?”

I want to share a call to Global Missions with a scene from Gone With the Wind and an illustration about searching for your place in God’s kingdom.


Click the video for an audio/visual presentation of this post …


A Scene from Gone With the Wind — and a Call to Global Missions


A woman in our church had a dream in which she was walking through various rooms of a beautiful mansion, but she was feeling left out and unneeded. In her dream, this woman finally found a particular ‘room’ she loved. At last, she felt ‘at home’ in the mansion and soon she was making friends and given a perfect job to do.


This lady’s dream was related in a sermon illustration, with the mansion representing God’s kingdom and rooms representing various churches and congregations. Just as this woman had found her ‘place in the house’ (a church family and a place of ministry where she could thrive) the sermon encouraged each person to seek God for His purposes.

Using this example, I spent some time in prayer, asking the Lord to reveal His will and desire for me and for our family ‘in His house.’

As I was walking and praying on the wooded trails surrounding our family’s home, I felt like I saw a similar picture in my mind:

I too was in a mansion, somewhat like the opening scenes of Scarlett O’Hara’s home, Tara, from Gone With the Wind.

As I entered various rooms I suddenly found myself:

    • in the kitchen of my local church,
    • in a vendor hall of a homeschooling convention,
    • in a living room,
    • and in churches.

Then, in my thoughts,
I felt led to go downstairs to a massive basement.

As I looked over this ‘room’ (which suddenly appeared to be outdoors), I was reminded of another scene from Gone With the Wind when Scarlett is searching for the doctor to help with her friend Melanie’s birth. In the movie, Scarlett steps through a graphic Civil War scene, with many wounded soldiers lying in row-after-row on the ground, moaning for help. As the imagery is captured on film, the camera pans to a broader-and-broader view as the intense scope of the Civil War’s casualties are revealed. Finally, when Scarlett finds the frazzled doctor and begs him to come help, the doctor responds:

“Are you crazy? I can’t leave these men for a baby! They’re dying … bleeding to death in front of my eyes, no chlorophyll, no bandages, nothin’ to even ease their pain!”

 


Click the video to view this famous scene from Gone With The Wind.


In my mind, I envisioned an open-air scene filled with people.
As my view expanded, wider-and-wider,
I saw massive crowd with many faces and nationalities
and hundreds of crying children.

I knew they represented people from around the world,
orphans who needed to be rescued
and SOULS who needed to be saved.

And just like that lone doctor in Gone With the Wind,
hardly anyone was working in this ‘room.’

People were dying everywhere
and the need was beyond anything I had ever seen.

As I prayed, I felt the Lord speak to my heart:

You are called to THIS room,
to help with the needs of the basement.
But you’re also called upstairs
to other rooms in My House,
to get others to come help.

The need is great
and there aren’t enough workers.

Go to families, women,
homeschoolers and churches.

But don’t get distracted
by the needs in the other rooms.

Romans 10:14-15 tells us,
“How shall they hear without a preacher …
and how shall they preach unless they are sent.”

 

If you are searching for your ‘place’ in God’s house,
please remember the cries from the basement.

Amy Carmichael’s Vision

Amy Carmichael

Thy Brother’s Blood: A Vision for Lost Souls
By Amy Carmichael
Missionary to India (1967-1951)

More mission quotes
by Amy Carmichael

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highlighting this quote


The tom-toms thumped straight on all night, and the darkness shuddered ‘round me like a living, feeling thing. I could not go to sleep, so I lay awake and looked; and I saw, as it seemed, this:

That I stood on a grassy precipice, and at my feet at crevice broke down into infinite space. I looked, but saw no bottom; only cloud shapes, black and furiously coiled, and great shadow-shrouded hollows, and unfathomable depths. Back I drew, dizzy at the depth.

Then I saw forms of people moving in single file along the grass. They were making for the edge. There was a woman with a baby in her arms and another little child holding onto her dress. She was on the very verge. Then I saw that she was blind. She lifted her foot for the next step . . . it trod air. She was over, and the children over with her. Oh, they cry as they went over!

Then I saw more streams of people flowing from all quarters. All were blind, stone blind; and all made straight for the crevice’s edge. They were shrieks as they suddenly knew in themselves that they were falling, and a tossing up of helpless arms, catching, clutching at empty air. But some went over quietly and fell without a sound.

Then I wondered with a wonder that was simple agony, why no one stopped them at the edge. I could not, I was glued to the ground. And I could not call; though I strained and tried, only a whisper would come.

Then I saw that along the edge there were guards set at intervals. But the intervals were too great; there were wide, unguarded gaps between. And over these gaps the people fell in their blindness, quite unwarned; and the green grass seemed blood-red to me, and gulf yawned like the mouth of hell.

Then I saw, like a little picture of peace, a group of people under some trees with their backs turned towards the gulf. They were making daisy chains.

Sometimes when a piercing shriek cut the quiet air and reached them, it disturbed them and they thought it a rather vulgar noise. And if one of their number started up and wanted to go and do something to help, then all the others would pull that one down.

“Why should you get all excited about it? You must wait for a definite call to go! You haven’t finished your daisy chain yet. It would be really selfish,” they said, “to leave us to finish the work alone.”

There was another group. It was made up of people whose great desire was to get more guards out; but they found that very few wanted to go, and sometimes there were no guards set for miles and miles of the edge.

One girl stood alone in her place, waving the people back; but her mother and other relations called, and reminded her that her furlough was due; she must not break the rules. And being tired and needing a change, she had to go and rest for a while; but no one was sent to guard her gap, and over and over the people fell, like a waterfall of souls.

Once a child caught at a tuft of grass that grew at the very brink of the gulf; it clung convulsively, and it called — but nobody seemed to hear. Then the roots of the grass gave way, and with a cry the child went over, the two little hands still holding right to the torn-off bunch of grass. And the girl who longed to be back in her gap thought she heard the little one cry, and she sprang up and wanted to go; at which they reproved her, reminding her that no one is necessary anywhere; they gap would be well taken care of, they knew. And then they sang a hymn.

Then through the hymn came another sound like the pain of a million broken hearts wrung out in one full drop, one sob. And a horror of great darkness was upon me, for I knew what it was; the cry of the blood.

Then thundered a voice, the voice of the Lord. And he said, “What hast though done? The voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto Me from the ground.”

The tom-toms still beat heavily, and darkness still shuddered and shivered about me. I heard the yells of the devil-dancers and weird, wild shrieks of the devil-possessed just outside the gate.

What does it matter, after all? It has gone on for years; it will go on for years.
Why make such a fuss about it?

— God forgive us! God arouse us!
Shame us out of our callousness! Shame us out of our sin!

Amy Carmichael, Thy Brother’s Blood Crieth:
(India: The Dohnavur Fellowship).
Obtained from an article from Bethany Fellowship, Inc.
Minneapolis, MN.


Amy Carmichael (1967-1951) was born in Northern Ireland to a wealthy family. When she was eighteen, her father died, and as the eldest of seven children, Amy received much of the family responsibility.

Within twelve years, Miss Carmichael had 130 children in her care and had rescued many hundreds more. For fifty-five years, she sacrificially lived and ministered in India…without even a furlough. Many others were inspired to join with her, and together with these co-workers, she established an Indian mission work called “The Dohnaver Fellowship,”

Amy Carmichael is best remembered for her life work of saving precious Indian children (especially rescuing many young girls from Hindu temple prostitution). Even today, through her books and writings, the impact of her life and testimony continues to challenge many to a deeper walk with the Lord, and a deeper commitment to His service.

Taken from The Mission-Minded Child,
by Ann Dunagan