Discernment and Obedience

I do my utmost to live in obedience if I am able to discern God’s will. Sometimes the discernment is hard. Other times the obedience is hard. Most recently, it is the latter. I am being offered the one job (a promotion to my boss's position) that I have always coveted, and I don’t believe that God wants me in that job. I have worked hard at discernment, and what I have discerned is that God would have me walk away from this job. I get lots of encouragement to take it, but I have reason to believe that these compliments are simply compliments and that I would be listening to the Evil One, should I take them for more than that and go ahead and accept the job. God put me in the job I currently have, and there are some indications that He wants me to remain in it. One of the hardest things I have ever done is say “no” to that position, but I did it two weeks ago, and I stood by that “no” when people came to me with temptations to take it.

So, whew!, matter over, right? Nope. I was at an office party today, and up came a senior official, asking me why I had turned down and then tried to talk me into changing my mind, saying I was the right person for the job. He pushed aside all my "logical" arguments. Of course, God has to consider me the right person for the job, but I can only say that to some people. Others simply do not "get it" when I give this reason. Sigh!

Obedience

I have written a number of posts here about taskings I have been given, and which I have followed through on. Usually, they require me to act like I am nuts (to those who don't believe in God or don't believe that God interacts with people today as God did in the past -- I don't believe that God has stopped talking to us but rather that we have stopped listening) or require me to do things that I find embarrassing, humiliating, and otherwise a tad troublesome. Of course, they are always the right thing to do, and they always focus on helping someone, righting a wrong, and the like. It is just that sometimes I wish God would choose someone else, partly because I am not obedient by nature and partly because, well, why would anyone want to go around making himself/herself sound like a modern-day Jeremiah (if only on a small scale)?

Interestingly, these taskings, to date, have always been things I am supposed to do. Until recently, that is. I have for a few weeks been trying to write a post for this blog about the Voice. Yes, of course, I have written many posts about the Voice. However, I have never sat down and described the Voice in detail the way St. Teresa did -- and maybe she described all that is needed to be described, but I really thought I had something to add to that description. However, each time I wrote a very nice (my opinion) post on the topic, I would hear God telling me: "Don't post it." I have tried 4-5 times, each time with the same message: dont, which is not a word I typically get, except in the case of not leaving my job for a better one. I don't know why I am not supposed to post it. After all, God let St. Teresa of Avila (big disappointment this week -- was in Madrid, Toledo, Alcala but could not get to Avila) write about the Voice in very specific ways. (Of course, there was St. John of the Cross hanging around, telling her not to pay much attention to her locutions, whose advice she did not heed in this case.)

It is all very confusing to me, yet very clear. I will not post or share my description because I am not supposed to. Perhaps because it will do some harm. Perhaps because I don't understand it as well as I think I do. (That happens a lot in life with a lot of things.) All I know is that when God says do something, I do try to do it (perhaps with less posh than someone else would do it, but it gets done). Now God is saying not to do it -- so I will not do it.

Tasked II

I am heading for a meeting, the purpose of which I am unsure. But, let me backtrack and give some background both for the meeting and for my uncertainty. It goes back to my encounter with Goliath. For those who have not been following this blog and the drama with Goliath, here is the first installment of what appears will be the Goliath series: Tasked. The second installment is here: Decision?. Now the tasking and the decision-making seem to be rolled up together, and absolutely nothing is clear. Argh! Help!

Details? They follow, but to understand them, you will need to be familiar with the two postings above for this is actually the third in a series.

After what I thought was case closed, tasking completed, following the SFO Council meeting where I explained the problems with Goliath, the name I had given to the Formation Director who systematically belittled people, put up barriers to profession by the most spiritual among the group, and seemed intent on snuffing out any discussions of deep conversion at formation meetings (even general spiritual discussions he would nudge out of the conversation, moving it into more secular or rules-oriented topics). Worse, several of us felt a cloud of evil surrounding him, which made it difficult for us to meet in a small, enclosed space with him. The outcome, with which we had been left after meeting with the SFO Council about this (not an easy matter to arrange, either, as you know if you have read the first posting on this topic) was one that left N and me, the two who presented the case to the Council, filled with elation:

(1) No one who objected to being with G would be required to attend Formation until a new director came into place (some unspecified time in the future);

(2) Meetings would be held in San Ignatio, making them easier to attend by local people who could not afford to go to Salts where the director lived (something that G had been insisting upon for his personal convenience);

(3) One or more senior members of the organization would be present at all Formation meetings to ensure that spirituality was not waved aside and that the presence of God was always requested.

That lasted for two months before G fought back. Soon, he had intimidated the three candidates who remained in Formation to come to Salts. Since none of them were from San Ignatio, I suppose it did not matter although San Ignatio is considerably closer to their homes, an important fact when considering that one of them suffers from agoraphobia. At least, however, Goliath is not allowed to be alone with candidates. That is a major accomplishment for the side of good, and G is not happy. In writhing to extricate himself from the "cell" he has been placed in by the Council, he, of course, has tried to blacken my name and reputation with all with whom he comes into contact. I don't worry about that. I did as God asked. The interesting and perhaps not surprising result, then, is that G's efforts have been turned against him. People other than those originally involved have begun to see what N, O, E, and I saw months ago, and now G is becoming marginalized, or at least his efforts at bringing evil into God's organization are being deftly turned away. It is so interesting and encouraging to watch God defend His people.

Nonetheless, when the two strongest Council members, AR and L announced that they would be resigning in protest over G and what he has done and is doing, N and I felt that the side of good had clearly lost ground. There was still no spiritual advisor, whom we felt could balance the force of G. So, N and I invited AR and L to dinner to try to convince them to (1) stay on the Council and (2) push for a spiritual advisor.

Donnie cooked a wonderful spaghetti dinner for us, which everyone enjoyed. N ran about my kitchen helping serve and clean up. (I am lost in a kitchen. Send me to the war zone in Afghanistan? Sure, no problem -- and that really is on the docket for me for most of the summer. Put me into the kitchen, and I become nervous and confused.)

We began our dinner meeting with prayer, and it seemed that God stayed with us throughout. The dinner had not been necessary, however, except as a wonderfully supportive coming together of sisters. AR and L had already taken back their resignations; although they might be very frustrated, they realized that they, too, had at least an implicit tasking. They had also pushed forward the hunt for a spiritual director and had identified a local nun, whom I know quite well; she would be ideal -- very spiritual, honest, and strong. She will attend our next SFO meeting and make a decision as to whether she will join us as spiritual advisor.

AR and L said that they were concerned that the others and I had been hurt by G. Not so, I assured them. I was not hurt. God gave me a tasking. I did it imperfectly perhaps but to the best of my ability, letting the chips fall wherever they might. I added that I probably cannot be hurt because God would not allow me to be hurt. L and AR did not understand that latter part, about God not allowing me to be hurt, but I suppose that does not really matter. And, yes, I know that sometimes God does allow His people to be hurt if there is a greater purpose, but in the long run, the greater good becomes clear and the hurt turns to something valuable.

What was clear from our discussion was even more encouraging than our meeting with the Council. First and most important, G is receiving oversight. In L's words, "no one is allowed to be alone with him, and no group is allowed to be alone with him." Clearly, G is feeling boxed in. He lashed out at AR and L, telling them "you betrayed me." They laughed and told him that they could not betray him because he is not holy; they worship God, not him. I wonder how that went over! AR and L also told me that MB, the minister, had "found her voice and her role" on the Council and was no longer being intimidated by G or taking directions from him that are self-serving, wrong, harmful, and even anti-Franciscan. It seems to me that AR and L have also found their voice!

So, just when I thought everything was over and I could make some kind of decision about my participation in the SFO, that I had completed my tasking by the Council's reaction in containing G, the saga suddenly continued with G fighting back. Then, when that seemed contained, when the other members of the Council had found their voice, and I assumed that now I could move on, N called me (yesterday) and said that AR and L want to meet with us for a pre-Council-meeting discussion. Neither of us knows why.

Nonplussed by this information (and the sinking sense that my tasking has still not been completed), before leaving for the meeting, I asked God what He would have me do. In response, I heard two words, more impressed than spoken, that absolutely flabbergasted me: "Love him."

Love him? After everything I had been through? After making a fool of myself in front of the Council by revealing that I had been told to "Let Goliath know he cannot treat My people this way?" Love him when I seem to have been tasked to de-claw him? Love him when his intent toward me has been clearly stated -- he wants me out of the way, completely out of the way, gone -- and refers to me only in the scathing-most terms? Love him when the characteristics that best describe him -- ambition, pride, condescension toward women, derision of the poor, selfishness -- are ones that repel me? Love him when I feel Evil pulling at him, even enveloping him to the point that at times I simply recoil? Love him? Lord, You are indeed inscrutable!

If God says love him, though, I guess I have to learn how to do that although I don't really know how. I do pray for G very frequently. Perhaps that is a start. I can bring myself to hug him, but from his side it is always a cold, mechanical, public gesture. I hope that what I return is not the same, but it is admittedly not some kind of passionate care and concern. Lord, how do you define love?

I guess the first step must be learning what God means by love, and then maybe I will be able to love Goliath. Right now, though, I have to run off to a meeting and, on the way, decide whether to share this new "enlightenment" with the Council members who probably have already written me off as a bit "touched" after I shared with them the earlier visions and locution. I will let you know soon what happens.

(This post was written last Sunday; I am just now getting a chance to post it. The meeting has taken place, so stand by for a post on the results and next steps in the sage that this tasking has produced and is continuing to produce.)

Temptation

(I rarely double-post anything here, but the content of this post that I just released onto my Blest Atheist blog seems quite a propros for the discussions here. In fact, I was torn between posting on that site and this site. I have now resolved that dilemma by posting in both locations. So am I correct in this being an interesting and pertinent subject for the readers of the Modern Mysticism blog? You tell me!)

When the High Muckety Muck from my organization was leaving this week and a new Muckety Muck arriving, a party followed the passing along of the muck. At that party, I met an old friend and colleague from Washington, DC, DR. He is getting ready to retire, he told me, from his influential position. Then, he asked me if I had considered retiring from my current position.

I have enough time in the organization to do that because work in related organizations in the past counts, but I am not old enough. However, I could take an exceptionally early retirement and make out okay, especially if I were to take a post-retirement, double-dip job, which is what DR had in mind.

He went on to tell me that there are not one, but THREE, positions of high status (and big money) in Washington about to open up because their long-term incumbents are retiring soon. DR told me that all three incumbents, including he himself, would like me to be their successor. I do have the qualifications and experience to hold any one of those jobs and would just have to nibble at the bait that they are holding in front of me.

Certainly, the money would be much better than I am earning now, especially if it were to be added to retirement income from my current job. Opportunities for moonlighting and consulting would be much more plentiful. So, from the point of view of $$ and what they will buy -- a comfortable retirement, a luxurious home, money to travel now and after retirement, nice stuff, an inheritance for the kids -- these opportunities are enticing.

From the point of view of excitement and rubbing shoulders with national power mongers, just thinking about any one of these positions brings a rush of power-fueled headiness. I would be associating not only with the people about whom one reads in the national news but also with the people who write about them and who would write about me. Now that brings a great sense of importance! Self-efficacy, Self-esteem! Confidence and pride!

From the point of view of making a national contribution, the work itself will be a contribution. I could leave a legacy, see my name in lights, make my kids proud.

It sounds like I could have any of the three without much competition. DR suggested that I drop by the next time I am in Washington and, preferably, sooner rather than later. Neat! I did not drive home. I floated home on some kind of elevated cloud and wisped up to Donnie, giving him the great news.

He looked at me quizzically, "Would you really want to move away from San Ignatio? I would not trade San Ignatio for Washington!"

Oh, yeah, that! I would have to leave my sleepy little sacred town for the big city of neon and naughtiness (well, and a lot of goodness, too). No, I don't want to do that. Not really.

"I have a thought," I countered. "Since they are coming to me and not the other way around, I could probably work nearly any kind of deal with them within reason, including ten-hour days, so that I could have 4-day weekends, allowing me to commute from here."

Now, I have to give Donnie a lot of credit. He did not think the idea of commuting was crazy. You see, at one time I was living in California and working in Jordan. That was quite a commute. Another time, I was living in California, working in Washington (same commute that I was suggesting to Donnie), and, at the same time, going to school in Moscow. So, my definition of commute is pretty broad compared to the general population of the USA. The only folks who have a longer commute, I would say, are the astronauts, who commute from Cape Kennedy to the International Space Station.

There was only one fly in the ointment. The town I live in is the place God planted me. The job I have is the job God picked for me (for details, see my post on this: The Jobs God Would Not Let Me Have and the One He Insisted I Take and Keep). I have already seen some reasons for both my location and employment. I assume that there are more reasons that I may or may not find out later. The reasons don't really matter. What matters is being where God wants me to be. Thoughts about these new Washington positions created feelings of excitement in me, independent of anything holy. Thoughts about my current position, San Ignatio, and Old Mission bring feelings of peace, happiness, comfort, and belonging. Ah, hah! I think that is what discernment is about -- determining where God wants us.

I suppose if I were to try to march away from here, God would close those positions, just like he did others earlier. I like to think, though, that it is much better to walk away from the temptation on my own and accept the work that God gives me.

So, good-bye big money. For what did I need you, anyway? I already have anything you can buy. My current job will give me a comfortable enough retirement. I really don't need much to be happy. A luxurious home creates the need to pay cleaners and helpers, pour money into maintenance, and spend more time in caring for the home than in other more important endeavors such as caring for the homeless. Money to travel? Puh-leez! My current job has me up in the air most of the time. My great desire is to be on the ground, my own ground. Nice stuff? And just what am I supposed to do with it? Donnie and I already once gave away nearly everything we owned when we moved in 2000 from a 13-room house to an RV. An inheritance for the kids? Well, back in the year 2000 give-away, the family sentimental and heirloom stuff went to them, and as far as any large monetary sums are concerned, that is not the kind of inheritance I want to give them. I want to leave them diligence, self-reliance, knowledge, capabilities, parenting skills, study skills, and good character, along with a sense of joy, peace, and love, i.e. the ability to make their own inheritance.

But wait, what about that great sense of importance and self-esteem that comes from rubbing shoulders with the powerful? Oh, right, I am already important as a child of God, and there is no one more powerful than He with whom I could possibly rub shoulders. Anything more is illusion and hubris. Nope, I don't need any overweaning pride or false self-esteem.

So, golly, I guess I am not going to make that national contribution, not leave a legacy. Hm, wait. I am already making an international contribution through my current position. True, I don't get a lot of personal international headlines. The contribution is known, but the contributor is not. I think that is how it should be. Yes, I can be and am happy with that. I don't need my name in lights, and, as for my kids, they are already proud of me, just the way I am, as I am of them, just the way they are. There is nothing lacking after which I have to chase across an entire continent. Better to remain still and enjoy what all that I have right here.

As I reflect on the negative sides of these tempting offers, it is easy to see the immense treasure I have right where I am. Most of my children are here. So is God, according to Doah, who announced when he first arrived at our new place, "God here," and according to a friend from, of all places, Washington, DC who announced after walking around town for a few minutes, "etot gorod namolein" (this town is soaked in prayer). So have been the tasks that God has given me in the last few years. My support, too, has been here, in the simple folk in our prayer group, in the naive teens in our catechism class, in the yearning-for-understanding townspeople in our Bible Study group. Good people. God's people.

Fortunately, it only took a few minutes for me to see the potential job offers for what they are: a temptation to move away from where God put me, step back from the taskings He has given me, and surround myself with people other than those to whom He brought me. I do get to choose, though. That is what free will is all about, right? In that case, I choose what God wants for me. I find just as much, if not more, excitement in that than in the money, neon, and power being offered by DR. More important, just the thought of choosing God's simpler, humbler way brings a sense of perfect peace.

Whew! Close call!

Dreams

I generally do not remember my dreams. I do not often remember even having them. I do remember having had a couple of nightmares. I only recall ever getting two of them, and I don't remember the story lines; rather, I remember only the fact that I got them and that I would wake up shaking. They showed up right after my conversion. Ever since, I have turned to God every night for protection from this kind of evil toying with my unconscious mind, and no nightmare has again appeared.

Although I do not generally remember my dreams, I know I must have them. I fall easily into deep sleep, and that means I am dreaming. Without REM sleep, one cannot renew one's body on a daily basis and becomes sleep deprived in spite of having slept. I am not sleep-deprived. I am almost immediately in REM sleep and can wake up fully refreshed after few hours than most.

In all, there are only three dreams that I can remember. Two arefrom bygone days; both hysterically funny, which is probably why I remember them since in both cases I woke myself up laughing. I also remember the one I had last night, a serious and insightful one, something more than a simple dream I think. I will let you judge.

For reasons I do not now recall, I was driving along our crooked, hilly, Maine-woods, farm road that travels the edge of the White Mountains far from anywhere, anything, and anybody. Suddenly, I saw a young girl walking the road, dressed in black clothes, with a cowl over he head, carrying a bundle. I called her over and asked if she needed help. She said yes and pulled back a corner of the wrapping of the bundle, revealing what seemed to be a mass of bloody flesh, telling me that it was a baby although I could see no head and hear no sound. "Give me a ride to the hospital," she said in a demanding voice.

The scene seemed very strange: miles from nowhere, covered in black, a face I could barely see, bloody flesh wrapped in a black shroud. My instinctive caution kicked in. Stop! Go no further! If I let her into the car, who knows what might happen. What would she really do with and on this ride?

I told her to stay put, that I would be back in 15 minutes. Then, I turned the car around and drove the five minutes back to the farmhouse I had just left, the place where I grew up (not only in the dream but also in reality). I forced Donnie, my husband, to leave the table where he was eating with the rest of the family, explaining what I had seen, and insisting that he come with me to help this girl, spooky as she might be. Shane, my grown son, also at the table, put into the some "weapons" of the tire iron type.

With Donnie at the wheel, we zoomed back to where I had left the girl in black, but she was not there. So, we turned back and went to the hospital. (Yes, that means we would have had to go past the hospital on the way to picking her up, but in the dream there was no hospital on the way to pick her up but there was one along the same road when we turned back). When we reached the hospital, we learned that her story, which I had doubted, was true. No one had picked her up; she had walked all the way there; the bloody bundle of flesh was a baby, who was doing fine as was the mother. When I went to her room, she was with a friend. Nonetheless, I entered.

I tried to hide my identity, again for reasons I do not recall, that made sense at the time of the dream but not now (as so many things in a dream do). However, she told me that she knew who I was because she had just found me on Internet. (I know not all these dream elements make sense since she had just delivered a baby and would not have been up and about using the Internet; one does not have computer connections, at least not yet, in hospital rooms; and all she had to go on was my face so she would have had to google a mental image, obviously an impossibility. Nonetheless, in the dream it all made sense.) Both she and her friend, it turns out, worked as junior-level specialists in my professional field and, therefore, after googling me, she understood who it was who had refused her a ride.

I felt very guilty about not picking her up. I felt guilty about my desire to check things out before doing the task before me: giving her a ride to the hospital. I felt guilty about my feelings of reservation. I felt guilty about not returning on time. I especially felt guilty about being afraid -- of what, a newborn baby and a young mother in need?

The rest of the dream occurred synoptically, with many years rolled into a few flashed images. As a result of my feelings of guilt, I became the godmother to her son. Over time, I helped her with him as he developed as well as in their daily life. (There seems to have been no father involved.) I became her emotional support and physical helper whenever there was a need. The relationship was not peer friendship. It was more one of mothering. And suddenly I awoke.

I don't think that this was an unprovoked dream, nor do I think it was provoked by me. Last night, like every night, I asked God to prevent Evil from taking over my unconscious mind and send instead dreams about Him, so I was not expecting this kind of weird dream.

I also do not think that it is a prophetic dream; that is, I don't think that something like this is going to happen. There will be no lady carrying a new-born baby down our old farm road where I will be driving past. The likelihood of my driving our old farm road is preposterous. I rarely go to Maine, and when I do, I don't go to that part. Once in the past 42 years since leaving there, I have driven past the farmhouse because I was nearby and wondered how it looked. Especially nonsensical is the idea of Donnie and Shane eating breakfast at our old farmhouse. They have not taken a trip together since hiking the Appalachian Trail in 1987. Donnie's leisure schedule has never coincided with adult Shane's. Moreover, the nearest hospital is 13 miles away and located in a nearby city; hospitals in the USA are not, for pragmatic reasons, located along isolated winding roads in farm country. So, for practical reasons, I don't think this is a prophetic dream.

I do think it is an intentional dream, a lesson that I have probably needed to be taught for a long time. I have no idea if my interpretation is correct, but I do have an interpretation. It goes something like the following:

(1) If someone is in my path, like the cowled lady, I should help immediately. I have not always done so; I have often hesitated.

(2) I should not delay in order to run for help in determining the authenticity of the task (the command to take her and something that I was unsure was really a baby to the hospital), evoked by the image of running for Donnie just as I run to a priest for confirmation of a locution and simply wait for more confirmation if no priest who takes locutions seriously is available.

(3) It is not of my concern whether the person will use the help appropriately; I have occasionally hesitated when approached by panhandlers.

(4) Doing the task with lack of alacrity may result in someone else being sent to help (the friend who was in the room with the cowled girl) and/or the ultimate assistance is less powerful or requires more complicated intervention than when I jump right on it (the cowled girl ended up walking a distance that she could have avoided).

(5) My safety was not at issue; this raises the question whether I am too self-protective physically or, more likely, emotionally at times when it comes to taskings.

All those "feelings of guilt" in the dream, I interpret as showing me my weaknesses, with the intent of the dream being to educate me. In the dream, I felt guilty about those weaknesses (and ultimately "made up" for them). In real life, I should trust God enough for me to move on out with any divinely imposed tasking without hesitation rather than waiting and repenting for the wait.

The authenticity piece troubled me initially. Fr. Thomas Dubay in his book, Authenticity, the book that has become second most helpful to me after the combined volumes of The Cloud of Unknowing and the Book of Privy Counseling, says to check with a priest (my preference always) and, if that is not possible and there is no immediate way of confirming the authenticity of a locution, to wait. I interpret this dream as saying the opposite. I would love to hear what he would have to say about the dream. Maybe I will write and ask him. In the interim, I will continue to check with a priest where I can do that quickly. Otherwise, if the prompting/tasking is not in contradiction to Scripture (so far, nothing has been), I will simply do as Fr. Barry once suggested after questioning (make that, grilling) me about a locution: do it and see what happens.

Does anyone have other insights? Has anyone received instructions through a dream? This is a first time for me; I don't want to over-interpret the dream. (Hm, there I go hesitating again!)

Voice II

In the early days after my conversion, I heard the Voice regularly. Prayer to me was a dialogue with the Voice. I would ask for lessons, and things would happen. Or, out of the blue, the Voice would task me with something, always something that I did not want to do.

One early example was the day when praying about something entirely different, the Voice interrupted me with the words, “Call your mother.” To understand the significance of this, one must know that my mother (my only living parent) had so abused her eight children both as children and as adults and abused our children (her grandchildren) as well that all of the “8-pack” (my seven siblings and I) had written her off. I had not been in touch with her for ten years, and I certainly had no intention of just up and calling her for no reason at all. In fact, it would take some sleuthing to find out where she lived and what her phone number was.

So, this did not seem right. I was sure I had not heard correctly. “There is no way I am going to call my mother,” I responded. “She is a bad person.”

“She lives in grace,” responded the Voice, and that was the end of the communication.

I fumed and sputtered about it all being so unfair, arguing that she should not live in grace after everything she had done to us (beating, biting, kicking, stabbing and letting us be used as sex objects by male relatives). I stomped around the Old Mission grounds, punching the air in anger. I must have been an interesting sight to anyone walking by. I wonder what they might have thought I was — drunk or deranged.

The Voice would have its way, though. I finally realized that I have no right to judge Ma. (Oh, but how I wanted to!) Only God could do that, and if God said that she lived in grace, who was I to say anything to the contrary?

Assuming that the Voice I had heard was Who I thought it was, I figured I had better make a phone call. That was easier said than done. I spent a few days and tracked down my mother’s phone number, yet I could not bring myself to make the call. Every time I felt that Presence around me, pushing me just a bit, I would resist. Finally, I turned to God and said, “I cannot make this call. I have no idea what to say. What can I say after ten years?”

The Voice immediately responded. One word only: “Listen.”

Sure, of course, I could call, tell her who I was, and then just listen. And that is what I did. I called her. There was complete shock in her voice as she said, “Is this Beth? It sounds like Beth used to sound.” I confirmed her guess, and she took over, talking non-stop for an hour, occasionally asking a question, filling me in on her life, telling me about her concerns. Clearly, she had mellowed as she approached her 80th year.

The outcome of that conversation was that more of the 8-pack began speaking to her, and a year later seven of the eight of us returned to Maine to celebrate her 80th birthday, the first time we had all been together back in Maine in more than 30 years. Rollie, unfortunately, could not get off work, but he, too, had forgiven Ma for the horrific abuse of him and would have come had he been able to.

Another example of God turning bad into good -- and teaching the value of waiting and forgiving. And of the Voice tasking me in ways that have led to spiritual growth.