About 50 years ago, a dear friend gave me a book titled The Richest Lady in Town, and in the inside cover she had written “To dearest Nita, one of the richest ladies I know”

Just those few words? How funny, I thought.

Here I was a 30-year-old stay at home Mom, with 2 small children, and a husband who was so overworked that he could hardly spend time with us. We had moved into an unfurnished, almost underground apartment where the windows were like prison bars because we couldn’t afford the rent for a furnished apartment.

Thank goodness the heat was included in the rent, because we couldn’t have afforded a heating bill. After paying the rent we had $40 a month to live on, approximately $10 a week for groceries, medicines, bus fare, and everything else.

We had no automobile, so my husband got out of the house at 6 in the morning to make two bus connections to the Hospital where he was a resident earning $2.65c an hour. The paycheck showed 40hrs a week, but it was more like 80hrs.  Sometimes he wore my rain bonnet if it was raining because we didn’t own an umbrella. 

The two small bedrooms were carpeted, which was just wonderful, because the four of us shared three blankets between us as we made ourselves as comfortable as we could on the floor. We had no furniture, a few cast off pots and pans and some dishes and mixing bowls that somebody had passed on to us. I was saving up to buy a can opener, but somehow our 10 dollars a week didn’t quite cut it.

I would walk to the grocery store holding my children’s hands, pick up those 6 pack eggs, a little square of ground meat – the smallest one, some potatoes, cabbage and a packet of rice or dried beans, and perhaps a banana or two. Near the checkout I would realize that I didn’t have enough cash, and I would reluctantly return the eggs and the bananas which would have been a luxury for us, and would mentally plan my menu for the week.

The rice and potatoes and dried beans would fill us up over the week.  I could take a pinch of the ground meat and cook it with the cabbage, and perhaps use the rest to make us a small meat and potato pie.  More realistically a potato pie with a smidgen of meat. You’ve heard of that slogan “Where’s the meat?” That could have been an appropriate household slogan for us!

So where did my friend get the idea that I was one of the richest ladies in town? We’d have to travel all the way back, some 80 years as a matter of fact to a country halfway around the world to find the answer. 

God saw the heart of this little Burmese girl who was brought up in the lap of luxury, surrounded by doting parents and grandparents, butlers, maids and chauffeurs, a little girl who seemed to have everything yet who was desperately searching, desperately wanting to please God and to know God as she religiously performed all the Buddhist rituals, and He gently but very thoroughly began the process of drawing her to Himself. 

He brought into my life a man whose heart was His, a man who by His very life would draw me to the Savior that He loved. God brought me face to face with terror and brutality as political unrest broke out in the country of my birth. Students were massacred, my father was forcefully taken away from our house, confined, interrogated, and terrorized, and people we loved had been placed in solitary confinement without a trial.  

But through it all, God in His sovereignty had a purpose and on November 3, 1973, when Mimi was 2 1/2years old and Zaw almost 6, He brought us into the United States of America into freedom from oppression and tyranny. We had had to wait two years to get our departure forms. As professionals we had to pay the government 10000 kyats each, sign papers that acknowledged we were traitors, leave money, photographs, jewelry, home, everything, and were allowed to take out only $20.

And God went before us and miraculously brought us to Chattanooga and this beloved city became our home. We struggled to survive during his year of internship, a family of four, in that basement apartment, as God became our sufficiency and sustained us even as He stabilized and rubbed off the rough spots in our lives and made us lean on Him as He showed Himself strong on our behalf. Everything of material value was taken away.

So was it riches to rags, or rags to riches for me?

This poem by Martha Snell Nicholson sums it all. 

“One by one He took them from me, all the things I valued most,
Until I was empty handed, every glittering toy was lost!
And I walked earth’s highways grieving, in my rage and poverty,
Till I heard His voice inviting, “lift your empty hands to me”
So I held my hand toward heaven and He filled them with a store
Of his own transcendent riches, until my hands could hold no more.
And at last, I comprehended, with my stupid mind and dull,
That God could not pour his riches into hands that were already full.”

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I suffered extreme poverty, but He became my sufficiency.

I suffered emptiness, but He became my friend, my companion.

I suffered depression, but He became my joy, my hope, my light.

In my weakness, He became my strength.

He took my empty religion and gave me new life.

He took me from my family and brought me into His family.

He took away my restless empty heart and gave me a new heart.

He took away my material possessions and gave me Himself.

And He began the process of pouring out His riches, treasures that will not rust or corrupt, where thieves cannot break in and steal.   

My story began many years ago, and the poem still reminds me of God’s outpouring into empty hands, and I still ask myself the question – do I keep my hands open and still lifted up to Him?

What about you?

Are you facing trials and circumstances and stresses that are more than you can bear? As we begin to see with God’s perspective, and feel his great heart of love, we will see that trials come filtered through God’s loving fingers as instruments given to us to draw us ever closer to Him.

Even as a gardener prunes and cuts and weeds around a tree that he has planted, and as the sculptor chisels away at his masterpiece on the anvil, even so God prunes and chisels and places us in the crucible of his fire of love, never raising it too much yet just enough to burn away the dross till we come out as refined gold. God’s heart is hungry to see His own reflection in us as He looks with joy at His masterpiece.

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Through every season of loss and abundance, God has proven Himself to be the only true source of riches. If today’s reflection encouraged you, I invite you to continue the journey with me.