Steve and Jenny Valentine

John Piper states "God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him". Piper's statement came to the forefront of my mind while reading a Puritan prayer from the Valley of Vision that said: I thank thee that many of my prayers have been refused -                 I have asked amiss and do not have                 I have prayed from lusts and been rejected                 I have longed for Egypt and been given a wilderness.    Go on with thy patient work,                 answering 'no' to my wrongful prayers, and fitting me to accept it. So am I satisfied when God says no? For a God who works all things together for the good of those who are called a...

From the moment that we decided to give up everything in order to move across the world, we have experienced a variety of emotions. After all, we had a baby, were appointed to serve as missionaries in Poland , began raising up financial and prayer support teams, sold our home, sold almost all our belongings, traveled the States to continue raising support, and moved into a one bedroom apartment! So what seems fitting to say about our emotional condition over the past year is this: we are completely and utterly dependent on God, our Savior, to sustain our every breath through each new day and the many things we will experience in the midst of life’s ever-changing moments. It is only by the power of the Holy Spirit at work in our hearts that we can (and want to) press forward into what lies ahead for our family. We are often uplifted by songs and hymns. We want to share the words from a couple songs with you. It is our hope that you find great encouragement in these words below...

Not long after Jenny and I got married we made our first important purchase together, we bought a filing cabinet. We didn't go all out on our first filing cabinet but decided to stay simple and buy a nice two drawer cabinet that would fit nicely in our apartment. Within about a month of owning this filing cabinet we learned a very important lesson, files placed on top of the filing cabinet remain on top of the filing cabinet unless acted upon by an outside force . A consistent pattern began to develop and can still be seen to this day. Papers, bills, and other important documents get placed on top of the cabinet until one, or both, of us get frustrated enough to deal with the pile.  real life depiction  Sometimes this process of removing the stack on top of the cabinet is instigated when we realize that if it were to fall on one of our kids we might not ever find the child again.  Recently, as I sat on the couch starring at the Tower of Babel-like stack of papers o...