Letters From Norman…
The following is a letter Norman Grubb wrote to Page Prewitt after his first visit to her home in 1972.
Feb. 8. 72
Dearest new friend and correspondent,
Don’t you think I love it when another dear one wants to talk with me by letter?!! I surely do, so you never need hold back on that account. I love you and your sharing with me, and all the loving welcome you and Tom gave me on this my first visit.
I don’t think there’s much to say, dear, because it is so obvious you are being taught of God. You had to go through the period when other younger Christians “seemed” (only on the exterior and because you yourself “seemed” much happier than you thought you did!) much happier than you. God usually gives us at the start a period of release and happiness from our past “lost” condition, because we can then only see like babies. But then the adolescent waking-up stage comes; we realize we have a new standard of life to live, and the more we try the more we flop. So there is a healthy time when we are more inwardly miserable as a Christian than we were as a pagan, (because as a pagan we try to hide from ourselves and our true condition, whereas as Christians we are honest to ourselves). And only by this means, by the hard way of trial and error can we discover that self-effort won’t work, because independent self can only in the end love itself and can’t produce the other-loving fruits of the Spirit.
So it is a second shattering experience to come to the place where we not only were guilty as sinners, but are now helpless as “saints,” and are not meant to help ourselves! Independent self is bound to kick against that, until we have reached exhaustion point. And thank God you had, love, before I ever had my visit with you!
So you surely have to “dislike yourself very much” while you have the mistaken idea that self ought to be improved!! But at last it dawns that self is only meant to be the human vessel with human reactions for Him to be Himself by us, then we laugh at ourselves and love ourselves!! So, love, you certainly had to come to the place where you felt the only thing to do was to “quit the whole business”!
But now this “exchanged life” has begun to come into focus, and I think one little evidence of that was that you could enter in to “God Unlimited”! We have got so used to these preparatory “wilderness” days to be conscious of ourselves and our failures, that it takes time before our normal condition is unself-consciousness–just being ourselves. But the principle and the fact is embedded in you now, dear one, and has begun to shew above ground in your precious self, where you are just yourself; yet it is really not you but He, and you just forget that most of the time!!
You say you have times when you “feel” hurt, depressed, etc. Yes, you surely will and are meant to, because we are here to feel in our humanity the negative impacts of the world, and they sometimes take the forms of making us feel off colour; but they are really our practising ground for continually transferring from negative believing in such “appearances” to positive recognition that we are He, and one of His forms of shewing Himself to the world by that relaxed spirit of being ourselves because it is really Himself. Sometimes we definitely do this while we still feel the opposite, because we are not governed by soul-emotions but spirit-facts!
As for Bible reading and prayer, the one thing, as you told that lady and put pins and needles up her spine, is not to take guilt, because you are not living by Bible or prayer, but by living union with the Person. So whether you read and pray or don’t, keep off the guilt. In our freedom, as we are moved in that direction, it is good to deepen our understandings of Him and His ways by the Bible just as you temporarily found enough interest to re-read God Unlimited. As for prayer it is simply living communion with Him, and we can be at the sink or anywhere. Again I think we gradually get into a habit where we like to turn our attention to Him and talking with Him about others we are interested in. So just take these in your stride.
Great you have begun to share this with the Class.
You ask about writing, maybe I shall–somewhat on greater clarification on “good and evil” and a lot of other things!!
Mark 8:34 is what you and I have surely begun to do; but by God’s grace He makes us. We did that when we first turned to Him from being the self-centred people we were; and we continue in what we are now talking of–turning from striving and self-effort to Christ in us; and we shall continue further as he leads us into a self-sacrificing ministry to others, as you with our Bible class.
Just been able to get this to you, dearest, before I start south again for three weeks. But I shall love it if you will soon write again and I love you as you me. And thank you dear, very very much for this loving gift. I will pass it to our folks for some immediate need. There is a call from our splendid workers in Congo and this could be a help.
Just ever lovingly, dear, and Pauline and Pris send love,
Norman
