(I'm sorry for posting this in here, since it's probably the wrong place... I just didn't know where else to put it and wanted it to be seen. Lady Elanor, you are welcome to move it wherever you think best.
)*walks in quietly and reads note aloud*
So I’ve been wanting to write this for over a year, but I wasn’t ready until now.
All of you have been touched by the situation with Jay in some way--some of you very directly, some of you indirectly. And it’s the sort of thing that’s very hard to ignore, and even harder to know how to react and what to think.
Some of you know why Jay was coming here to the USA… to meet my family and I. And so you know that this is very personal to me in particular.
There a few things I’d like to explain, and a few thoughts I’d like to leave you with.
The first is why I am not in contact with Jay and haven’t been for over a year (and at the same time why I have not been around on Holy Worlds anymore). It was not because he was in prison, or because I didn’t love him anymore. It was a matter of obedience, both to my father and to God. I did NOT want to do it, but I did. At first, and for a very long time, it was half-hearted obedience, and I was always longing to have things back the way they used to be. Jay was a very close friend and brother, and I missed him.
However, recently a few things have come up that have showed me the wisdom of my Fathers, and have helped me to obey whole-heartedly. I do not know what the end will be, only that I am content to leave it with them.
There have been quite a few things about Jay that have reached my eyes, most of which have been negative.
I have considered these things and many others for a very long time; very seriously. And I still do not know exactly what to tell you--I knew Jay as well as anyone could have (At least online), and there are still things that confuse me about him. My conclusion has been that he is neither an angel or a demon--he is not as good as I thought he was, but is he also not as bad as some like to paint him.
But there is one thing I am confident of, and it is the power of God to change and know hearts. God knows where Jay’s heart now stands. I have prayed for Jay for more than three years; hard prayers. I trust that God is answering them. I only hope and pray that Jay will submit totally to God before it gets any harder.
It is easy to either excuse people’s sin or to exaggerate it and dwell on it. It is easy to point fingers at others and not see that the same sin lies within your own heart.
It is hard to lovingly and truthfully point out sin in a brother’s heart and genuinely plead for them to repent for God’s glory. It is hard to go on loving and hoping when it seems they do not, will not listen. It is hard to look at someone’s sin and recognize it in all its horror in your own heart, and then repent. It is hard… no, impossible, on our own. We need Christ.
And I ask--whatever your position is about Jay--that you ask God to search your own heart for wrong attitudes and for sins that have yet to be repented of, instead of focusing on Jay and his wrongs. I have done the same. It is a frightful experience in some ways, but oh, is it worthwhile.
I realize that some of you have been called to move on from Jay in some way, as I have been. Even still, I ask that you do not harden your heart. He has hurt some of you deeply; I realize that. He has done wrong by some of you; I understand. But he is our brother, and he is in a more difficult situation than we can even really imagine. Please, have a little grace.
So what now? How do we go on? I have struggled with this question more than most, I suppose, but yet there are probably a few others who feel it.
The conclusion God has brought me to is more or less to just go on serving Him as before; only now with a different heart. A heart that cares. A heart that knows deep pain and also knows of God’s goodness. A heart that trusts God.
Don’t dwell on Jay and this whole situation--but at the same time, do not completely forget him in his plight. Pray for him when you think of it.
And, above all, love God and seek to know Him more.
That is all I wanted to say. I hope… God uses it.
*curtsies and quietly slips out*
P.S. Just so as you all know, I sent this whole thing to my dad.
I know it still lurks here from poking around for a few minutes.
), but am also glad that God has given you a calling elsewhere. Thank you for keeping us in your mind and prayers, sugar!