To Our Dear Friend

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Hello, my dear friend,

I just wanted you to know how special you are in God's sight and how special you are to our family.

I wanted you to know how blessed my wife and I feel to have had our Lord bring someone like you into the lives of our children; someone whom they can and should look to as a genuine, realistic example of the Christian faith.

I wanted you to know how much I appreciate someone like you who says that they care about me and my family, and then lives out the truth of that claim in ways that touch us deeply.

I wanted you to know that you are so special in God's sight that those who can see that in you will go farther to be around you; being around you is a blessing from God, my friend.

I wanted you to know that it's not a sin to be hurt. I didn't always know that. People that have hearts that God has made especially compassionate toward others get hurt very easily. But that's not a sin.

I wanted you to know that I've learned that the sin happens when I don't go to Jesus when I've been hurt, and ask to Him heal my heart from that pain and restore my heart to the compassion that He birthed in it.

I've learned that I can tell Him anything, and He understands.

I've learned that He's gone before us and has experienced every single thing that we ever will, and yet He did so without sin.

And because of this understanding, I've learned that there is a better prayer for me to pray than "Jesus, what should I do?"

I've learned to pray, "Jesus, what did you do?"

I've learned that if I do what He did, I will get the same results.

I've learned that when I have prayed that prayer, I don't always want to do what He tells me that He did. Sometimes, I have thought the price to be too high, and sought to do it another way. It's never worked, though, and I find myself back at His feet, asking for forgiveness and another chance to do it the way He did.

I've learned that He desperately wants to give that second - and third, and fourth..... - chance.

I have learned to admire people who experience a great hurt, pause to prayerfully contemplate that experience and allow God’s Spirit to put it in its proper place, and then move on in their journey with Christ.

I have learned that people like that are like precious jewels, sparkling because they have allowed themselves to be cut by the faithful, trustworthy hand of the Master Jeweler.

I have learned that it should be my utmost priority to have a pure heart, and I have learned that I cannot accomplish this without His constant, merciful, gracious help.

I have learned that spiritual maturity does not mean achieving spiritual perfection. It means submitting to God and seeking to obey Him even when the price seems very high to do so. It means humbly acknowledging all that remains for Christ to change in my heart and life, while rejoicing in what He has already accomplished within me.

I have learned that we should want to be like weaned children toward our Heavenly Father; still completely dependent, but no longer demanding.

I wanted you to know that I have seen a glimmer of all these things in your heart and life, my friend. You inspire me and my family. We stand proudly shoulder to shoulder with you in the faith, and that will never change.

I wanted you to know that God has placed each of us specifically where we are for a specific purpose. There are needs around us that we were born to meet.

I wanted you to know that there is a hole, a lack, a need - in your family, your school, your job and in the Church - that you have been born to fulfill, my friend. It will be painful to do so at times, but with Him, you can do anything.

On the days when you feel that the price is too high, remember that you have desired in your heart to be used by Him in a mighty way. Remember that His maturity calls us to love in ways so sacrificial and inconvenient and painful that we never imagined them. Remember that Jesus told Peter, When you were young you dressed yourself and you went where you wanted to go. But when you become mature, you will stretch out your hands and another will dress you and lead you places that you don’t want to go.
John 21:18

Jesus told His disciples, “Get in the boat. We’re going to the other side.”

Then there came a storm so big that all of the disciples thought they were going to die. They forgot that Jesus said, “We’re going to the other side.” They didn’t notice that, because He had heard this from God, He was at peace. They didn’t notice that His peace was so great that He was asleep in the back of the boat while they were desperately trying to save their own lives.

But when they went to Him and awoke Him and asked Him for help, they realized it all. When they purposed to stretch out their hands toward Jesus, to let Him dress them with the storm in which they found themselves, to follow Him to a place where they did not want to go, they finally beheld the magnitude of the peace that He had.

It was a peace from God that could still a storm.

I wanted to remind you on this day, this hour, this season, and at the moment of this hurt that you‘ve experienced, that we have that peace available to us right now.

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.
John 14:27

I am thankful for you this day, my friend. My family may not have known it, but there was a hole, a lack, a need in our lives. It was a hole, a lack, a need that was shaped just like you.

We are thankful for you. You are an answer to prayer. You are a gift to us from God.