Home     |     Sitemap     |     Contents CONFESSION IS GOOD FOR THE SOUL from the Winter 1992 Stretcher Bearers for Christ newsletter Once a year, like clockwork, I receive a letter from an insurance company. Included is a blank form that must be completed by a doctor in order for me to qualify for continued disability payments that began 22 years ago. In my case it is for mental and emotional reasons. Every year when this letter arrives, it is as if Satan is allowed to take a month-long vacation from hell just to torment me with fear. You see, a portion of our income, $637.50 per month, is derived from a long-term disability policy which I purchased while employed in the computer field. I have learned to depend upon this amount and believed Satan’s lie that without this monthly check my family and I could not survive. Every year I experienced the same fear and incurred many expenses before the form was finally completed and returned to the insurance company. This long-term disability benefit which at the beginning was a real blessing gradually became a snare for me. Instead of placing my total confidence in God’s promise to provide for me, I divided my allegiance between God and the insurance company. I realize that God can and does use insurance companies as instruments to provide for us during emergencies, but more often than not, a portion of our faith can be undermined when we no longer see God as our exclusive umbrella of protection and provision. Since I have been a recipient of disability checks for such a long time, I have had the opportunity to meet many others who are in the same category. We are reluctant to throw away our “crutches” when it is time to learn to walk again. For the sake of continued disability it has become easy to convince ourselves that we are unable to compete in our highly competitive marketplace for employment when unwilling would be much closer to the truth. We can become very conniving in deceiving ourselves and others, thereby exploiting a system that was conceived to help us during periods of real need. But we do pay a price, a terrible price when we allow fear to divide our allegiance and trust between God and this world’s systems. I never realized this as clearly as during this last episode when I lay paralyzed by fear on the couch. Fear is one of many invisible strings that keeps us like puppets at the beck and call of Satan’s whims. No amount of disability is worth such torment. Not all of us are tormented by our thoughts and emotions to the extent that we cannot be employed or create our own employment, but even a small amount of fear is like a break in the dam. All the pills or alcohol in the world that are so conveniently available to give us a false sense of well-being or a good night’s sleep can properly safeguard us from unruly thoughts and emotions. Can you imagine 22 years of torment, 22 trips around the same mountain of fear which grew bigger and more threatening each year before I could finally say, “Enough is enough! I choose to trust God for all of my provisions from now on.” I wish you would allow me to tell you my whole story beginning with the day I entered Edgemont Hospital to this latest episode with fear. Oh yes, there are still many thunderstorms in my thoughts and emotions, but I am learning to close the hatches of my ship sooner and tighter or get dressed for battle when I see a storm coming. I would not only like to tell my story to you, but I would like to tell my story to every psychiatrist, every counselor, every pastor, every social worker and all others who attend to the needs of the mentally ill. I would also like to see some of our textbooks rewritten. My prayer goes like this, “Lord, let my life be Your glorious contradiction to the world’s definition normal.” I believe that those who read my story will be encouraged and receive hope where hope died a long time ago. My heart goes out not only to those who are mentally ill, but also to those who are called upon to attend to and witness their needs, especially those who must attend to their needs on a daily basis. I have written my story for you. I have made myself vulnerable and transparent because I love you and I love God. It’s my way of saying, “Thank you, Jesus, for healing my soul.” No one ever thought I would get well. The doctors all agreed that I was a basket case and would always remain one. But there was one person who never saw me as sick; and that’s what I needed, just one person who loved me just as I was and who was able to see me as a whole person. My handmaiden Rebekah saw me as well because that is the way Gods allowed her to see me. She held onto that picture and never let go of it. And that is the perfect soil and climate for a tender shoot to grow and a bruised reed to heal. Rebekah has contributed to the story I have written. In the chapter entitled “Hope and Healing” she writes: “One evening during a telephone conversation with Peter, the Lord gave me a picture of Peter in my spirit. I saw him standing on the side of a mountain, dressed in a white robe. Part of the robe was draped over one arm, and he was looking out over a great distance. His expression was all-knowing and all-wise; the wisdom of the ages was written on his countenance. I knew that I was seeing him completed and perfected, as God must see him through the righteousness of Christ. This has been a wonderful blessing in our lives, for I did not see him as ill or incapable in any way, but wonderfully raised up in Christ. This then set him free to go on in the Lord, to grow in Him, and to heal in God’s perfect timing and way.” Now, as I, Peter look across the sea of humanity, instead of seeing people sick and crippled, I am allowed to see them well and restored by the Grace of God. I cannot see everyone that way, but as the years go by, I am allowed to see more and more people whole. And those I am permitted to see whole and restored are translated into a soil and climate where they can heal more easily and quickly. I wish I could touch all of you, but the only way that may be possible is through the book Rebekah and I have written. We have called the book “The Wood Blossom” - A Search for Sanity in an Insensitive World. One might say that the book is a confession of my soul. To write my quest for sanity has been a very freeing and healing experience. (Available under a new title via the internet as of 2008:) I would like all of you who are no strangers to pain or those who minister to others in pain to have a copy of the book. I would like to send it to you immediately upon request, but I cannot - at least not yet, because the book is out of print. But your encouragement and gifts might change that. In the meantime, may this story and others that have been written and will be written for the Stretcher Bearers for Christ newsletter give you a bird’s eye view of this man Peter and his handmaiden Rebekah. I wish I could get on the roof tops and shout my story in every direction. I wish I could whisper my story into every dark corner of despair. I cannot do that; but maybe we can do this together. If we all pass on the life and the light we have received, we will become a mighty army of torch bearers illuminating the whole world as we go. Let’s confess our sins. It’s very good for our souls. Then let’s throw away our crutches of fear, our masks of anger, our veneer of false pride, our stooped shoulders of hopelessness and make room for the risen and victorious Christ in our lives. He is always waiting to reign and conquer through us. But because of the gentle man He is, He always waits for us to invite Him in. He has not come to rule over us, but to reign and rule through us. Sitemap    |    E-mail Peter and Rebekah    |    Guestbook All writings by Peter, the Lord's Scribe and Storyteller and all paintings by Rebekah, the Lord's artist are copyright free.