you just gotta love ’em … cont’d

After posting on “christian hate mail” the other day, I got a lot of encouraging notes from friends. Several said they have also thought about the pain, insecurity, latent aggression, and inner turmoil that must be quietly seething in people who overflow with this kind of damnation rhetoric. Focusing on that condition of heart, these friends said, helps them feel compassion for critics instead of resentment. I agree.
I especially appreciated this note from a friend named Wayne:

Hey Brian, I hope all is well. I wanted to forward this message to you as an encouragement. It’s from an airline pilot named Roxanne. Since first reading Secret Message, I’ve turned hundreds onto it, and bought many dozens to give away, so you can trust that Roxanne’s message below is just one of many I’ve received just like it over the past few years. So keep on point Brian… and don’t forget how God is using you in exponential fashion. I’m grateful to be in that number….

This was the note he had received from Roxanne, someone with whom he had shared Secret Message of Jesus …

…I read the Gospels, except Luke, which I haven’t gotten to yet, over the last few days. I’ve read them so many times, studied them in bible study, heard them in church, blah, blah, blah. As I read them this time, the phrase that kept jumping out at me was “kingdom of God”. What the heck does that mean? I intended to do some more research, online, you, etc. But the same as every other time I read them, I saw the same thing I had seen before and the words just didn’t make sense other than some small insights that I could glean along the way. Last night I got home and “The Secret Message of Jesus” had arrived so I sat down and read it. I read until late last night and then spent the rest of the day today reading it. I have about 5 pages to go. I found myself crying thru much of it because I felt as though the lights had been turned on. FINALLY someone put the numbers on the puzzle so I could connect the dots. I have felt so much passion for God, but also felt like I had no outlet or “place” for it. I feel inspired, though I don’t quite know what to do yet. I do know one thing. A few people in my life have expressed to me that the message they’ve heard just doesn’t quite make sense, that the message they’re hearing in church somehow doesn’t ring true. I have a list of about 25 people so far that I want to read the book. What if we could make God’s dream come true?

Then Roxanne emailed me and said …

I just wanted to e-mail you personally about your book and say thank you. I have searched high and low for answers and am so happy to feel like I can finally rest – in a sense. In another way, there’s sooo much to do. Have you ever seen a Bev Doolittle painting? I’m sure you have, but if not, there are always American Indians hidden in the picture. You look and look and finally see what’s hidden, but after you see it, you wonder how you ever looked at it before and didn’t see it. After that you can’t see it the old way anymore. That’s what your book did for me and I’ll be ever grateful. Thank you so much.

These encouraging responses remind me of a great lyric from Jackson Browne … from “The Late Show”:

Everyone I’ve ever known has wished me well
Anyway that’s how it seems, it’s hard to tell
Maybe people only ask you how you’re doing
‘Cause that’s easier than letting on how little they could care
But when you know that you’ve got a real friend somewhere
Suddenly all the others are so much easier to bear

Thanks to all the msny sweet and encouraging people who make the few bitter and discouraging folks “so much easier to bear.”