Dear Friends,

“Recovery is a familiar word today. Strenuous efforts are being made to recover our economic losses. But there is another loss that is more tragic in its consequences than the loss of material resources—the loss of faith in God, the experience of Christ that warms the heart and rejoices the soul. There is no poverty comparable to the poverty of spiritual life, and no riches of as great value as the riches of His grace.”

Those words, written by C. W. Tadlock, could have easily been written today, but they actually come from The Upper Room Daily Devotional for April 3, 1935. Our world today is deeply concerned with the loss of material resources, just as it was in 1935; and just as we were then, Upper Room Ministries is deeply concerned with those who feel poverty in their spiritual life and need to be reminded of the great riches found in God’s grace.

I was recently told the story of how a young woman first found The Upper Room Daily Devotional. She grew up in an abusive home with parents who were alcoholic. They lived near a church and she walked down the alley behind the church on her way to and from school. She said, “One day I saw this little book lying near the trash cans behind the church. It was a copy of The Upper Room Daily Devotional from the previous two months. I stuck it in my pocket, took it home and read it from cover to cover. It was my first introduction to a loving God.” She went on to say that it was a number of years before she actually went into the church, but she searched the trash behind the church every two months to look for a copy of The Upper Room. The young woman is now grown with children of her own, active in her church, and she still reads The Upper Room every day.

We never know how someone may find Upper Room ministries.

• It may be through the 500,000 copies of the daily devotional that are given to Prison and Military Chaplains.
• It may be through the telephone line to the Upper Room Living Prayer Center. More than 30,000 persons each month call the Prayer Center seeking a compassionate voice and the assurance of God’s love and grace.
• It may be through reading the daily devotional on the website UpperRoom.org as is the case with the person who sent us this email. “God surely guided me to your website in the wee hours of this morning! I read it in ‘gulps’ like a person dying of thirst! THANK YOU to whoever had the foresight to put the Upper Room on the web and gratitude to those who maintain the site.”
• It may be through one of the 77 editions printed in 40 languages and distributed to over 3 million people in 100 countries around the world.

By whatever path people find their way to The Upper Room and whatever economic situations we face, the world needs to hear the message of C. W. Tadlock afresh, “Recovery is a familiar word today. Strenuous efforts are being made to recover our economic losses. But there is another loss that is more tragic in its consequences than the loss of material resources— the loss of faith in God, the experience of Christ that warms the heart and rejoices the soul. There is no poverty comparable to the poverty of spiritual life, and no riches of as great value as the riches of His grace.”

Your gifts make it possible for persons to find The Upper Room. God has abundantly blessed each of us with love and grace. At this holiday season, please give generously so we can continue offering the message of God’s great riches of love and grace around the world.

Blessings,
Stephen D. Bryant