Dear Miss Lonely Heart

"O satisfy us with Your mercy and loving-kindness

in the morning, now, before we are older, that we may

rejoice and be glad all our days."

Psalm 90:14

Although Chapter 54 of the Book of Isaiah is primarily intended to express

Zion's joy over redemption, it has also a very personal, long-neglected, and

often overlooked message for women-the lonely, the disappointed, the childless,

the widow,  It has all the glorious confidence and assurance, the incentive and

understanding, for which feminine hearts have longed for throughout the ages!

Every woman who will read it every week for a year with receptive heart and

mind will find herself not only spiritually prepared for her own childlessness

or widowhood, should it come, but also supplied with a rich treasure with

which to address the similar needs of countless other aching hearts to

whom the Holy Spirit is here speaking.

The Amplified Bible

Sing, O barren one, you who did not bear;

break forth into singing and cry aloud, 

you who did not travail with child!

   For the spiritual children of the desolate one

will be more than the children of the married wife,

  says the Lord.

Enlarge the place of your tent,and let the curtain

 of your habitation be stretched out; spare not;

 lengthen your cords and strengthen your stakes,

For you will spread abroad to

 the right hand and to the left; and your

offspring will possess the nations

 and make the desolate cities to be inhabited.

Fear not, for you shall not be ashamed;

 neither be confounded and depressed,

for you shall not be put to shame.

 For you shall forget the shame of 

your youth, and you shall not seriously remember

 the reproach of your widowhood any more.

For your Maker is your Husband, the Lord of hosts

 is His name, and the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer; 

the God of the whole earth He is called.

For the Lord has called you like a woman forsaken,

 grieved in spirit, and heartsore, 

even a wife wooed and won in youth, 

when she is later refused and scorned says your God.

For a brief moment I forsook you,

 but with great compassion

and mercy I will gather you to Me again.

In a little burst of wrath

 I hid My face from you for a moment,

but with age-enduring love and kindness

 I will have compassion and mercy

 on you says the Lord, your Redeemer.

For this is like the days of Noah to Me;

 as I swore that the waters of Noah

 should no more go over the earth, 

so I have sworn that I will not be

 angry with you or rebuke you.

For though the mountains should depart

 and the hills be shaken or removed, 

yet My love and kindness
 shall not depart from you,

nor shall My covenant of peace
 and completeness be removed, says the Lord, 
Who has compassion on you.

O you afflicted city, storm-tossed and not comforted,

 behold, I will set your stones in fair colors 

in antimony to enhance their brilliance 

 and lay your foundation with sapphires.

And I will make your windows and pinnacles 

of sparkling agates or rubies, 

and your gates of shining carbuncles, 

and your walls of your enclosures of precious stones.

And all of your spiritual children

 shall be disciples taught by the Lord

 and obedient to His will,

 and great shall be the peace

 and undisturbed composure of your children.

You shall establish yourself in righteousness,

 in conformity with God's will and order;

 you shall be far from even the thought of

oppression or destruction ,

 for you shall not fear, and from terror,

for it shall not come near you.

Behold, they may gather together and stir up strife

 but it is not from Me.  

Whoever stirs up strife against you

 shall fall and surrender to you.

 Behold, I have created the smith 

who blows on the fire of coals

 and who produces a weapon for its purpose;

 and I have created the devastator to destroy.

But no weapon that if formed against you shall prosper,

 and every tongue that shall rise against you

 in judgment you shall show to be in the wrong.

This peace, righteousness, security, triumph over the opposition,

 is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, those in whom the ideal

Servant of the Lord is reproduced; this is the righteousness or 

the vindication which they obtain from Me, this is what I

impart to them as their justification, says the Lord.

Dancing Before The Lord

"You have turned my mourning into dancing for me;

You have put off my sackcloth and girded me with gladness

To the end that my tongue and my heart and everything

glorious within me may sing praises to You and not be silent,

O Lord my God, I will give thanks to You forever."

Psalm 30:11-12