There was a lot of correspondence between the scribe and his editor. Each of Stacy’s letters is a treasure. The scribe wants the reader to meet this lovely lady by reading one of them. It will set the stage for the book and inspire hope in those who have lost hope.

Those who are holding a hanging rope, a loaded gun, or suicide pills in their hands or thoughts will be able to place them in God’s Hands. Yes, there is more hope in Stacy’s letter than there is in all the pills and all the booze in the world.

November 12th, 2005

My Dearest Peter,

I've so much I want to express to you. I've begun this message several times, only to begin again. I'm happy that we'll soon have an opportunity to sit together. Perhaps we'll talk a great deal; perhaps we'll spend a good deal of time in silence together. I don't think it really matters, because we know one another's hearts.

One thing I do want to say now is that I don't have a clear idea about my place in God's plan. Since He began to bring the two of us together two years ago with Mom's visit to Pagosa Springs, I've become a different person. While Mom and Kelly were first sitting in your living room, I was in the hospital -- a mental ward similar to what you describe in the manuscript -- under 24-hour suicide watch. I had taken so many pills that I was unable to speak clearly. Everyone I trusted was gone. I had effectively pushed them all away. From that point to this is like the span of a lifetime.

When I went into treatment in May of this year, I kept your words close to my heart. You assured me that I was not going into that place -- yet another mental ward -- alone; Jesus was going AHEAD of me. Not just with me, but AHEAD of me. That reassurance came straight from the Throne of God. I couldn't have gone without it. I couldn't have stayed without it. I hated every second I was there, with the exception of a number of very early morning meetings with Jesus.

The treatment center is actually a sprawling ranch house just north of Lubbock. There are tennis and basketball courts, a swimming pool with a waterfall on the grounds. All of that was lost on me. I hated it. I especially hated being a "patient," being treated as a "case," and a typical one, at that. From the second I entered, everyone there saw me as a "typical addict" in every respect, except that I was perhaps sicker than most. Everything I said was met with quiet condescension, with a patronizing response meant to "calm me down" and bring me to an awareness that I was in a hopeless, helpless state. Every word I spoke was assumed to be an attempt to manipulate and deceive.

I shared a room with a precious lady named Jeanie, a soft-spoken, Christian grandma, who spent hours sitting with me while I wept and who daily invested her own limited energy in convincing me to remain in that facility while I ranted and fought and cursed. My emotions were raw and completely unpredictable. Physically, I was sick and exhausted; spiritually, I despaired.

The first time I left a message on your recorder, I had just had my first early morning meeting with Jesus, one that marked the beginning of a fork in the road. I found a copy of The Message Bible (coincidence?) there, and clung to it as to a life preserver.

I awoke that morning around 3:00AM, and began reading and writing and praying and crying. Just as the sun began to rise, I walked out past the fence line into the pasture, weeping and calling to God. I fell to my knees, and in a heap on the ground, said, "FINE!! I'M HERE! I'M BROKEN AND THERE'S NOTHING LEFT! I CANNOT DO THIS! WHAT IS IT YOU WANT?!"

For a moment -- just a moment -- I felt Jesus. For just a moment, I felt His presence. No words, just His presence and the knowledge that He would move me, He would speak for me, He would show me the Truth. I could TRUST Him. Since that morning, every day has been a process of leaving more, and more of the old Stacy behind and coming to know the new Stacy – Resurrection Life Stacy. I've been moving out of fear, like shedding an old, dry, dead layer of skin.

I haven't understood it. I've just turned my eyes to Him and confessed that I TRUST HIM. I TRUST HIM to provide the money we need to live. I TRUST HIM to protect us from those who would attack us. I TRUST HIM to recreate my marriage in the image of Christ with His bride. I TRUST HIM to protect and heal my children. I TRUST HIM to protect me from the obsession and compulsion to use drugs. I just TRUST HIM.

As I was reading the manuscript, all of this came together for me. My spirit bears witness to the truth of God's revelation to you. Those little, “white stones” began to form a pattern when I read,

“This is for My son Peter, who must know My Love for him. Never to be separated again! Never to be disappointed in Him again! No longer dust, no longer clay, but now spirit, one with Him in joyous COMMUNION forever.

My trust is not misplaced. He allowed me to read your revelation first, an undeserved honor and measure of Grace that has not escaped me.

These words really are for His daughter, Stacy, who must KNOW His Love for her, and as you point out, it is a KNOWING. It is CHRIST IN US that is renewed through communion, and it is only through CHRIST IN US that we live.

How sweet, how sweet.

When I wrote that the manuscript is for a "select few,” I was thinking in terms of the moment. Others will hear. Others will KNOW. Others will be drawn out of that wasteland and into His Light and Warmth and Strength.

Yes, we will battle, but we will KNOW that the battle is won, that no further sacrifice is needed; no further sacrifice will EVER be pleasing to the Father. It is done, and I don't have to have a clear idea about my place in God's plan, because He carries me with Him. I need only bask in His Love.

I love you, Peter Rabbit.

Stacy