Breaking Pride's Protective Shell

I've been in bad shape. Don't really know why. I've found a measure of healing laying here in the woods and crying. Reading back in my journal and asking You to show me what it was I wasn't getting, has helped.



-- I notice you don't ask Me to speak into your mind. --



I guess I haven't. I seem to want to feel blank in my brain, yet I get this queasy feeling like I should ask if You have anything to say to me like last Sunday.

So, please clear my mind. Protect me from anything myself and any other input that is not of You, in Jesus name... I place myself before You, and I am willing and desirous to hear You.



-- My child - I love you.

Do not let your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid -

for I am with you.

I am with your friend. I know you are worried about her, but she is in My hands, for I love her as I love you. --



(I see a "picture" of You holding her face in Your hands and kissing the top of her head, and Your love just "running down" all over her.)



-- Keep that picture before you

and know that I love her

and know that I love you.

You do "count" with Me.

You do matter to Me. --



(Lord? The tears start to choke me.)

(-- Keep writing, child. --)



-- You do matter to Me and I love you. --



(Lord? the next thing I hear seems like just a memory from Anne's prophecy over me at Haymarket, but I feel blocked if I don't write it... and I don't want to write it because I can't believe it is from You. It sounds too preposterous.)



-- I cannot "live" without you: you mean that much to Me.

Come. Lay your heart in My hands and know that I love you. Know that I do want you for My own,

My very own. --



(please, Lord: conflicting loves and loyalties?)



-- I'll resolve them, for you cannot resolve them in and of yourself. And this is how I will do it:

I will love you until you can love no more,

and then I will love through you.

There is much love I have to offer a dying world, and I offer/long to love through you --

but your love will not suffice.

Under its severity, you would "crack".

You cannot take it: the pain is too great.

But I can take it.

Let Me love through you

Let Me care through you

Let Me tend through you.

But to do this, you first must let Me do all three for you. You do count with Me. You must know this beyond a shadow of a doubt.

You think all growth must come through suffering

but you think wrongly.

Much growth doesn't;

rather it comes through love

through the experience of being loved.

This is what changes you

This is what brings growth

This is what brings true humility: the knowledge of being loved, being deeply loved, will break the hardest shell of pride.

Yes, I know -- you have read that knowledge of being deeply loved brings humility. I can and do draw on that which you have read. But notice: I take it beyond and tell you that humility means the hard shell of pride has been broken.

Don't you see what this means? Pride is used by all as a shell to protect the heart. You have long wanted Me to deal with your pride, but I need to deal with the hurt that underlies it. --

Christmas 1986, 1 1/2 years after Heidi got sick

December 1986

Dear Family and Friends:

This has been a year of change for us: a year of trouble and tears and some measure of triumph. The triumph is that we have somehow survived it, more or less intact, and with God's grace we will continue to survive. We thank the many of you who have upheld us with your prayers, for we have felt those prayers holding us up when we would have collapsed from overwork and anxiety.

In February, Michael left his job at the Food and Drug Administration for a freshly challenging job as the Food Packaging Project Coordinator at the National Food Processors Association (NFPA). I tried to pick up the pieces of my graduate schooling in the spring but between a new pregnancy, our house going on the market and another medical emergency with Heidi, I found that I was unable to complete the course. Heidi had fallen two steps off a front porch and had to be flown out of the neighborhood to Children's Hospital with a "bleed" in her brain. Once again, this child of great courage found herself in a wheel chair, confused and disabled. Once again she has fought her way back. In mid-November she was readmitted to the hospital for corrective surgery on the "bleed" after her condition suddenly deteriorated. She appeared to have recovered from the surgery and came home the day before Thanksgiving only to be readmitted on (you guessed it) Thanksgiving day with left sided paralysis. This setback turned out to be temporary and she is now recovering nicely and is back to a limited amount of school.

The school itself is a major triumph. After being out for a year and a half, Heidi is now able to go to a special class where she is physically protected and helped with the learning and physical disabilities incurred as a result of the treatments for her cancer. Her teacher is a veritable miracle worker and Heidi is so very happy to be in the classroom again.

Our summer was taken up with getting Heidi into a placement at school (you wouldn't believe the amount of testing and meetings, interviews and sheer volume of time that it took!). We were very fortunate to have some wonderful people in the school system and Children's Hospital working in Heidi's best interest. The rest of the summer disappeared into complications with my pregnancy and moving. Fortunately, now (after a few real scares!) it looks like we will be delivering a new, (hopefully) healthy baby sometime around February 15th. We've moved into a pleasant house by a small patch of woods that has provided endless visual enjoyment. We've found that we have a lovely group of neighbors who really pulled for us during Heidi's two weeks at the hospital.

All of this has been very hard on Justin, who is having some severe school difficulties as a result. Oh, he has kept his engaging, (if a bit bizarre) personality, but your prayers for him and for our wisdom in how to help him are greatly needed.

So where does this leave us? Oh, not the normal changes and stress - thank God for those! - but the situation with Heidi. We've seen her lose so much, so very much, and struggle so hard for each small gain, only to be slapped down again. Medically, her prognosis is poor. We live with that daily, and yet continue to hope. And there is the clincher: how does one continue to trust God?... the God who has the power to stop ill, yet doesn't. No longer is this a theological question for us, a doctrine to expound upon one way or another. For we have been halted screeching-ly before the magnitude of its reality and grapple with it daily. How can one continue to pray for God's protection when He didn't protect Heidi?

And the answer that comes to me through this long tunnel of loneliness sounds with bell clarity...

"Have I not said that in this life you will have tribulation?

But be of good cheer; for I have overcome the world."

And somehow He is there. Though everything else appears burnt to ashes, He is still there.

And He came, in the form of a babe. And He was not late. And He faced His own tribulations in order to overcome the world for us, so that somehow we might survive. And He continues to stand with us and to lend us His strength and give us His peace. Truly; He is the Prince of Peace come to abide with us for all eternity.

And so our prayer for you this year is that He may reign in each of your hearts, bringing the joy that comes from within no matter what the circumstances are, both during this celebration of His birth and in the year to come.

With love and blessings,

Patty, Michael,
Heidi and Justin