~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
NOTES  FROM  THE  VALLEY - September 22, 2000

"Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of
death, I will fear no evil for you are with me."  Psalm 23.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

TOPIC:  THE  STRUGGLE  TO  FORGIVE

From our last update, most of you know that Cathy's Mom, Bea, went through
very successful surgery this month to remove cancer from one part of her
body.  But during the surgery, the doctors discovered that the cancer had
spread.  All of us who love Bea are now struggling with the knowledge that
Mom's previous doctor and her HMO delayed her surgery for seven months after
the cancer was first discovered.  Their delays allowed the cancer time to
spread.  I can't begin to tell you the anger and frustration we're feeling
right now.  But God has reminded me that we need to be very careful how we
handle those feelings.  I say "reminded me" because this is a lesson He's
had to teach us (me) many times before.  Being angry is not wrong.  Jesus
got angry at the moneychangers and the Pharisees.  But if we're not careful,
what we do with that anger, can become very wrong.

I believe the devil attacks our family members because he knows they're the
point of our greatest vulnerability.  If we ourselves or someone who is a
distant friend or acquaintance comes under attack by the devil (hardships,
sin, sickness, etc.), it's relatively easy for us as Christians to "let go
and let God" handle it.  But when that someone under attack is a parent,
mate or child, some very strong emotions come into play and can easily get
in the way of our faith.  We want to immediately jump into the middle of
everything and protect our love ones, relying on our own strength instead of
God's.  We get our eyes off of the Father and onto the problem.  No only
does that NOT help those we love, it also causes us to lower our shield of
faith and become vulnerable to his attacks as well.

Why does the devil need to use such round about tactics to get to us?
Because he needs our power.  The power God gave us and Jesus recovered for
us to exercise our dominion over this earth and everything in it.  The same
power that makes us too strong for him to come against us directly.  So he
has to use lies and deceptions to trick us into relinquishing some of it to
him.  If he can paralyze us with fear, our power is neutralized.  If he can
get us to lash out at others in anger and hatred, then our power is in his
control.  And if you're honest, you'll admit that when a loved one is under
attack, the majority of us respond in one of those two ways.  Fear or anger.
So the devil wins.

(A short side note: The rituals and practices of psychics and witches are
another of the "deceptions" the devil uses to "channel" our power away from
us and into him.  Their rising popularity, in my opinion, is a strong
indication of the growing, desperate, spiritual need in people who don't
know the Lord.  It is also an indication of the devil's frantic search for
new ways to gain as much of our power as possible because he knows the time
is short to the second coming of Christ.)

But God's got a better way of handling those attacks.  He asks us to trust
Him enough to release the person under attack into His care.  Then He turns
our attention and power against the one behind the attacks - the devil
himself.  Prayer is an obvious weapon, but there are others as well.  God
points us in the direction the devil doesn't want us to take, the
opportunity he doesn't want us to see.  The place where we can really turn
the heat up on the devil.  The place were a gift of our time, our talents,
or our finances will further God's kingdom and cost the devil dearly.
Whatever it is, pretty soon, the devil finds himself in a power deficit,
expending more power than he's gaining, and he's forced to give up and head
for the cover of darkness to lick his wounds and recover.  And our faith and
trust in the Father, the surrendering of our free will to His will, opens
the door for Him to fulfill His will in our loved ones life as well.

But this wonderful and miraculously effective plan can't even get started if
we don't take the first step - forgiveness.  Our forgiveness of others and
our earnest seeking of God's forgiveness for us so we can draw near to Him.
Forgiveness that requires repentance, a turning away from our sin -
including any harbored desires for revenge.  I wish I could tell you that
the battle is always easily won.  That at the instant of God's revelation
and ministry to us, we forgive completely.  I cannot.  The struggle Cathy
and I are having forgiving those doctors and administrators who thought more
of profits than the effective treatment of Mom is evidence of how far we
still have to go.  But I do pray we are getting better at it and forgiveness
for even them will come.

The following pages contain just a few of the articles and notes God has
provided to us over the years as He has gently, but firmly revealed to us
our need to forgive.  I have found both comfort and encouragement in them
and I pray you will too.  The pain and suffering that accompanies our
journey through this foreign land, this valley of the shadow of death, bring
us face to face with the reality of our free will and the singular choice
God requires us to make as the consequence of that free will.  In
Deuteronomy 30:19-20, God speaks these words.

 "I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set
before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that
both you and your descendants may live; that you may love the LORD your God,
that you may obey His voice, and that you may cling to Him, for He is your
life and the length of your days . . ."

To chose God and life, we must first chose forgiveness.

I remain a work in progress, sheltered under His wing and overwhelmed by His
love,

Steve Hall



FORGIVENESS  IN  GOD'S  WORD
(New International Version)

"For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will
also forgive you.  But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father
will not forgive your sins."  Matthew 6:14-15

"Then the master called the servant in. 'You wicked servant,' he said, 'I
canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to.  Shouldn't you
have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?'  In anger his
master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay
back all he owed.  "This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you
unless you forgive your brother from your heart."   Matthew 18:32-35

"Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not
be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven."   Luke 6:37



THE  WAY  GOD  FORGIVES

In the book "A Forgiving God in an Unforgiving World," Ron Lee Davis retells
the true story of a priest in the Philippines, a much-loved man of God who
carried the burden of a secret sin he had committed many years before. He
had repented but still had no peace, no sense of God's forgiveness.  In his
parish was a woman who deeply loved God and who claimed to have visions in
which she spoke with Christ and He with her.  The priest, however, was
skeptical.  To test her he said, "The next time you speak with Christ, I
want you to ask Him what sin your priest committed while he was in
seminary."  The woman agreed.  A few days later the priest asked, "Well, did
Christ visit you in your dreams?"

"Yes, He did," she replied.

"And did you ask Him what sin I committed in seminary?"

"Yes."

"Well, what did He say?"

"He said, 'I don't remember.'"



THE  PRISON  OF  OUR  UNFORGIVENESS
(Corrie ten Boom)

Corrie ten Boom, in her book "Tramp for the Lord" had these words to say
regarding forgiveness:  It was 1947.  I had come from Holland to defeated
Germany with the message that God forgives.  It was the truth they needed
most to hear in that bitter, bombed-out land, and I gave them my favorite
mental picture.  Maybe because the sea is never far from a Hollander's mind,
I like to think that that's where forgiven sins are thrown.  "When we
confess our sins," I said, "God casts them into the deepest ocean, gone
forever.  Then God places a sign out there that says No Fishing Allowed!"

Years after her concentration camp experiences in Nazi Germany, Corrie ten
Boom met face to face one of the most cruel and heartless German guards that
she had ever contacted.  He had humiliated and degraded her and her sister.
He had jeered and visually raped them as they stood in the delousing shower.
Now he stood before her with hand outstretched and said, "Will you forgive
me?" She writes: "I stood there with coldness clutching at my heart, but I
know that the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart.
I prayed, Jesus, help me!  Woodenly, mechanically I thrust my hand into the
one stretched out to me and I experienced an incredible thing.  The current
started in my shoulder, raced down into my arms and sprang into our clutched
hands.  Then this warm reconciliation seemed to flood my whole being,
bringing tears to my eyes.  'I forgive you, brother,' I cried with my whole
heart.  For a long moment we grasped each other's hands, the former guard,
the former prisoner.  I have never known the love of God so intensely as I
did in that moment!"  To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover the
prisoner was you.



WHERE  IS  LOVE ?
(James S. Hewett, Illustrations Unlimited)

After eighteen months in the ministry, a pastor went to his file cabinet to
pull out the "Love" file.  He discovered he didn't have one.  Impossible!
It must be misfiled. He searched among Faith and Fasting, between Healing
and Heaven.  Perhaps it was sandwiched by Christology and Christian Ed.
After all, these have to do with Love don't they?  But it wasn't there, nor
was it found after Money or ahead of Missions.

When he stopped to reflect, the Holy Spirit solved the mystery.  The Love
file was scattered, yet not misfiled. Parts of it were found under Patience,
Kindness, Humility, Trust, Hope, Loyalty, and Perseverance. But the pastor
found the greatest part of the Love file, squarely-centered and
deeply-seated, in Forgiveness.



FORGIVEN  -  FOREVER !
(Contributed by Casey of HeartStrings - Author Unknown)


Lisa sat on the floor of her old room, staring at the box that lay in front
of her.  It was an old shoe box that she had decorated to become a memory
box many years before.  Stickers and penciled flowers covered the top and
sides.  Its edges were worn, the corners of the lid taped so as to keep
their shape.  It had been three years since Lisa last opened the box. A
sudden move to Boston had kept her from packing it. But now that she was
back home, she took the time to look again at the memories.  Fingering the
corners of the box and stroking its cover, Lisa pictured in her mind what
was inside.  There was a photo of the family trip to the Grand Canyon, a
note from her friend telling her that Nick Bicotti liked her, and the Indian
arrowhead she had found while on her senior class trip.

One by one, she remembered the items in the box, lingering over the
sweetest, until she came to the last and only painful memory.  She knew what
it looked like--a single sheet of paper upon which lines had been drawn to
form boxes, 490 of them to be exact.  And each box contained a check mark,
one for each time.  The story behind it..........

"How many times must I forgive my brother?" the disciple Peter had asked
Jesus. "Seven times?" Lisa's Sunday school teacher had read Jesus' surprise
answer to the class. "Seventy times seven."  Lisa had leaned over to her
brother Brent as the teacher continued reading.  "How many times is that?"
she whispered.

Brent, though two years younger, was smarter than she was.  "Four hundred
and ninety," Brent wrote on the corner of his Sunday school paper. Lisa saw
the message, nodded, and sat back in her chair. She watched her brother as
the lesson continued. He was small for his age, with narrow shoulders and
short arms. His glasses were too large for his face, and his hair always
matted in swirls. He bordered on being a nerd, but his incredible skills at
everything, especially music, made him popular with his classmates.

Brent had learned to play the piano at age four, the clarinet at age seven,
and had just begun to play oboe.  His music teachers said he'd be a famous
musician someday.  There was only one thing at which Lisa was better than
Brent - basketball. They played it almost every afternoon after school.
Brent could have refused to play, but he knew that it was Lisa's only joy in
the midst of her struggles to get C's and D's at school. Lisa's attention
came back to her Sunday school teacher as the woman finished the lesson and
closed with prayer.

That same Sunday afternoon found brother and sister playing basketball in
the driveway. It was then that the counting had begun.  Brent was guarding
Lisa as she dribbled toward the basket. He had tried to bat the ball away,
got his face near her elbow, and took a shot on the chin.  "Ow!", he cried
out and turned away.  Lisa saw her opening and drove to the basket, making
an easy lay-up. She gloated over her success but stopped when she saw Brent.
"You okay?", she asked.  Brent shrugged his shoulders.  "Sorry," Lisa said.
"Really. It was a cheap shot."

"It's all right. I forgive you," he said.  A thin smile then formed on his
face.  "Just 489 more times though."

"Whaddaya mean?"  Lisa asked.

"You know...what we learned in Sunday school today.  You're supposed to
forgive someone 490 times. I just forgave you, so now you have 489 left," he
kidded.  The two of them laughed at the thought of keeping track of every
time Lisa had done something to Brent.  They were sure she had gone past 490
long ago.

The rain interrupted their game, and the two moved indoors.  "Wanna play
Battleship?" Lisa asked.  Brent agreed, and they were soon on the floor of
the living room with their game boards in front of them.  Each took turns
calling out a letter and number combination, hoping to hit each other's
ship.  Lisa knew she was in trouble as the game went on. Brent had only lost
one ship out of five. Lisa had lost three. Desperate to win, she found
herself leaning over the edge of Brent's barrier ever so slightly.  She was
thus able to see where Brent had placed two of his ships. She quickly evened
the score.  Pleased, Lisa searched once more for the location of the last
two ships.  She peered over the barrier again, but this time Brent caught
her in the act.  "Hey, you're cheating!" He stared at her in disbelief.
Lisa's face turned red. Her lips quivered. "I'm sorry," she said, staring at
the carpet.  There was not much Brent could say.  He knew Lisa sometimes did
things like this.  He felt sorry that Lisa found so few things she could do
well.  It was wrong for her to cheat, but he knew the temptation was hard
for her.

"Okay, I forgive you," Brent said.  Then he added with a  laugh, "I guess
it's down to 488 now, huh?"

"Yeah, I guess so."  She returned his kindness with a weak smile and added,
"Thanks for being my brother, Brent."

Brent's forgiving spirit gripped Lisa, and she wanted him to know how sorry
she was.  It was that evening that she had made the chart with the 490
boxes.  She showed it to him before he went to bed.  "We can keep track of
every time I mess up and you forgive me," she said.  "See, I'll put a check
in each box--like this." She placed two marks in the upper left-hand boxes.
"These are for today."

Brent raised his hands to protest. "You don't need to keep--"

"Yes I do!" Lisa interrupted.  "You're always forgiving me, and I want to
keep track.  Just let me do this!" She went back to her room and tacked the
chart to her bulletin board.

There were many opportunities to fill in the chart in the years that
followed. She once told the kids at school that Brent talked in his sleep
and called out Rhonda Hill's name, even though it wasn't true. The teasing
caused Brent days and days of misery. When she realized how cruel she had
been, Lisa apologized sincerely. That night she marked box number 96.
Forgiveness number 211 came in the tenth grade when Lisa failed to bring
home his English book.  Brent had stayed home sick that day and had asked
her to bring it so he could study for a quiz.  She forgot and he got a C.
Number 393 was for lost keys...418 for the extra bleach she put in the
washer, which ruined his favorite polo shirt...449, the dent she had put in
his car when she had borrowed it.  There was a small ceremony when Lisa
checked number 490. She used a gold pen for the check mark, had Brent sign
the chart, and then placed it in her memory box.  "I guess that's the end,"
Lisa said.  "No more screw-ups from me anymore!"

Brent just laughed.  "Yeah, right."

Number 491 was just another one of Lisa's careless mistakes, but its hurt
lasted a lifetime. Brent had become all that his music teachers said he
would.  Few could play the oboe better than he.  In his fourth year at the
best music school in the United States, he received the opportunity of a
lifetime--a chance to try out for New York City's great orchestra.  The
tryout would be held sometime during the following two weeks.  It would be
the fulfillment of  his young dreams.  But he never got the chance.  Brent
had been out when the call about the tryout came to the house.   Lisa was
the only one home and on her way out the door, eager to get to work on time.
"Two-thirty on the tenth," the secretary said on the phone.  Lisa did not
have a pen, but she told herself that she could remember it.  "Got it.
Thanks." I can remember that, she thought. But she did not. It was a week
later around the dinner table that Lisa realized her mistake.

"So, Brent," his mom asked him, "When do you try out?"

"Don't know yet. They're supposed to call."  Lisa froze in her seat.

"Oh, no!" she blurted out loud.  "What's today's date?  Quick!"

"It's the twelfth," her dad answered.  "Why?"

A terrible pain ripped through Lisa's heart.  She buried her face in her
hands, crying.

"Lisa, what's the matter?" her mother asked.

Through sobs Lisa explained what had happened.  "It was two days ago...the
tryout...two-thirty...the call came...last week."   Brent sat back in his
chair, not believing Lisa.

"Is this one of your jokes, sis?" he asked, though he could tell her misery
was real.  She shook her head, still unable to look at him.  "Then I really
missed it?"  She nodded.

Brent ran out of the kitchen without a word.  He did not come out of his
room the rest of the evening. Lisa tried once to knock on the door, but she
could not face him.  She went to her room where she cried bitterly.
Suddenly she knew that she had to do. She had ruined Brent's life.  He could
never forgive her for that.  She had failed her family, and there was
nothing to do but to leave home.  Lisa packed her pickup truck in the middle
of the night and left a note behind, telling her folks she'd be all right.
She began writing a note to Brent, but her words sounded empty to her.
Nothing I say could make a difference anyway, she thought.  Two days later
she got a job as a waitress in Boston. She found an apartment not too far
from the restaurant.  Her parents tried many times to reach her, but Lisa
ignored their letters.  "It's too late," she wrote them once.  "I've ruined
Brent's life, and I'm not coming back."

Lisa did not think she would ever see home again. But one day in the
restaurant where she worked she saw a face she knew.  "Lisa!" said Mrs.
Nelson, looking up from her plate. "What a surprise."  The woman was a
friend of Lisa's family from back home.  "I was so sorry to hear about your
brother," Mrs. Nelson said softly.  "Such a terrible accident. But we can be
thankful that he died quickly.  He didn't suffer."

Lisa stared at the woman in shock. "Wh-hat," she finally stammered.  It
couldn't be! Her brother? Dead?  The woman quickly saw that Lisa did not
know about the accident.  She told the girl the sad story of the speeding
car, the rush to the hospital, the doctors working over Brent.  But all they
could do was not enough to save him.  Lisa returned home that afternoon.

Now she found herself in her room thinking about her brother as she held the
small box that held some of her memories of him. Sadly, she opened the box
and peered inside. It was as she remembered, except for one item - Brent's
chart.  It was not there.  In its place, at the bottom of the box, was an
envelope.  Her hands shook as she tore it open and removed a letter.  The
first page read:

     "Dear Lisa,

     It was you who kept count, not me.
     But if you're stubborn enough to keep count,
     use the new chart I've made for you.

     Love, Brent"

Lisa turned to the second page where she found a chart just like the one she
had made as a child, but on this one the lines were drawn in perfect
precision.  And unlike the chart she had kept, there was but one check mark
in the upper left- hand corner. Written in red felt tip pen over the entire
page were the words: "Number 491.  Forgiven, forever."

________________________________________________

Copyright © 1998-2000 by Stephen J. Hall  -   Weekly letters of
encouragement to Christians written by Stephen J. Hall unless otherwise
indicated.  Notes from the Valley and Humor from the Valley are never
intended to offend anyone.  They're meant only to brighten your day and
encourage you along the way.  Most of "Notes" and "Humor" are a collection
of items provided to me by subscribers and friends.  Credit is given to both
the contributor and to the true author, where known.  If you are blessed by
them, please feel free to make copies and pass them along to others.  If you
have something you'd like to contribute to a future edition or would like to
ask us a question or make a comment, please contact us at:

sossteve@...
________________________________________________

Your love, God, is my song, and I'll sing it!  I'm forever telling everyone
how faithful you are.  I'll never quit telling the story of your love - how
you built the cosmos and guaranteed everything in it.  Your love has always
been our lives foundation, your fidelity has been the roof over our world.
(Psalm 89:1-3 The Message)