Letters from Norman…
by Norman Grubb

Letter #1

July 1

Sarah dear,

Glad you keep pouring out. You really do know the answer within yourself— Christ dwelling there for keeps—but you still confuse your rightful human soulfeelings, your outer human “flesh” clothing—with your TRUE SPIRIT SELF, joined to His Spirit. I know I have sent you that leaf let on soul-spirit.

A good negative is necessary for a good positive to have it to “swallow” up, like light is only seen when there is dark and we turn on the light to swallow up the dark. So you ‘foolishly’ keep on blaming yourself for having had these angry hate feelings about God, and will not recognize that God likes that. It proves that you are not just a clod of clay but a precious living person who must find out the truth before you accept it—thus you end your letter by saying “the other part of me feels an urgent anxiety about the matter.” Precisely. The urge of your true spiritself for ultimate reality in place of surges of feelings, angry thoughts etc. You have had to have the soul disturbances (your darkness) for the light to be able to show itself—the eternal fact of Christ in your inner spirit-center.

So I can’t say more, love, than constantly repeat this. You end by asking “Does release come by saying, I am free (Christ in me)?” Yes, love, it does, as you persistently say that with at least all the believing you can, that God’s word (such as Gal. 2:20) IS eternal truth to you. As you keep saying it, and confessing it to others, the Spirit will confirm to you. You will go on having soul-reactions but you will recognize those as something to “count all joy” (James 1:2) because they give you continual practice in affirming who you really ARE.

So just this, dear. I’m off again this week for two weeks family conferences in Blowing Rock, NC; wish you could join us. Then home through August, then off West coast through Sept. to early Nov. Wish we were coming your way but can’t do it. Have to be in Bermuda in early Nov. for the 25th Anniv. of the Willowbank Christian Guest House which has been such a blessing and I was involved in its start and wrote a small book on it.

Loving you and write again,

Norman

Letter #2

July 28

Dear Sarah,

I’m just back from our British tour, so could not answer yours before.

James says it all to you in 1:1-4. Your temptations to doubt, fear, hate, etc. are ALL GOOD. Get praising for them! By these alone (that’s why James put this first in his letter) do you have the practice (patience!) in recognizing such “feelings” as assaults on your soul; so you don’t fight or oppose them; but accept, for we live in the devil’s camp to be a light to our neighbours, so he has a right to shoot at us! But then we inwardly transfer our “knowing” to who we ARE in spirit-union, He as us.

You are in the phase of much self-consciousness—with fear, guilt etc. That’s just the good training for you James speaks of. Keep on believing, pick yourself up a thousand times, and patience will have its perfect work, and you will be much more settled in “knowing.” And the real purpose is that you should then become obsessed with sharing with other desperate ones around you your pearl of great price! Who you really are, and who they really are if they believe!

“Unpardonable sin”! The proof of that would be that you would so delight in it (instead of hating it) that you would not want to be forgiven!

You ARE love, with Christ as you—therefore all those assaults on feelings in 1 Cor. 13 you accept, but then replace on spirit-level.

Lovingly, dear, and now pay me my price by writing again and sharing your progress.

Norman

Letter #3

Aug 7

Sarah dear – though absent!

So glad you continue leaning a bit on this shoulder (really His in a human form!), and I enjoy being loved and love—at a distance!!

I’m just home from our great six weeks in Britain, living links every day—a whitened harvest, as Jesus said, of folks “blessedly” made desperate by their negatives and thus conditioned for their eternal replacement, and then the continuance of negatives in this life are adventurously seen as the jumping off pads for HIM the light swallowing up the dark. And then, love, you can help so many others!

But still I must ‘chase’ you on your saying you see it intellectually, but question whether you believe it. Dear, your problem is still assessing your attitudes by your self-responses. But believing is merely taking GOD at HIS word, with no concern about what you feel about it. Yes, you DO believe, but then you bring in selfquestioning as to whether you do believe. Cut that out!! Go on affirming and ‘confessing’ that you do believe and are believing, if all hell appears to say you are not. While you keep “obeying” by “believing,” and thus your inner eyes are on God and His word, then the Spirit will inwardly confirm in His time, as He sees you loosened up from self-assessment. But you are getting and seeing the negatives in their correct place, dear, and that is great riches which so few see—and thus stew! And you can in due course bring relief to many.

So, loving you, dear, still at a distance.

Loving my Sarah friend!

Norman