FROM MARIA ON FAILURE!            Maria Letter No.33               1/85

         1. YOU DON'T NEED TO WORRY ABOUT WHETHER OR NOT YOU ARE GOING TO FAIL & WHETHER OR NOT YOU HAVE WHAT IT TAKES TO BE HERE, THAT'S NOT REALLY YOUR PROBLEM, IT'S OURS! We're the ones who are responsible for bringing you here & we prayed that the Lord would stop you from coming if you weren't to come, so since you're here then it must be of the Lord. We know that it's the Lord's will you're here, because we waited quite some time before asking you to come, as we were waiting for any definite signs which would show it was not His will, but there weren't any, so it must be His will that you're here. So if it's His will that you're here, & He worked it out, then you shouldn't have to be so worried whether you're going to make it or you're going to fail. The Lord will take care of that, you just have to trust that He is in control. But you certainly shouldn't worry about it. If anyone's going to worry, we'll worry, OK?--Because it's our responsibility since we issued the invitation for you to come. We've spent a lot of time praying about you & discussing if you should come & praying that the Lord wouldn't let you come if it wasn't His will. We had the faith that if the Lord would let you come & let you get here, that it must be His will for you to be here & that you wouldn't fail.
         2. OF COURSE, WE DON'T SEE HOW YOU CAN FAIL BECAUSE YOU'RE JUST HERE TO LEARN, & IF YOU'RE LEARNING, THEN YOU'VE ACCOMPLISHED WHAT YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE DOING. The only kind of actual real failure you could have would be if you'd backslide & I certainly don't even consider that you'd ever do that! We know you well enough to know that you want to learn & you love the Lord & you love His Word & you love us, so I don't know in what way you could fail. We're not comparing you with anybody, we're not judging your performance or seeing if you are going to be better than someone else, you're just here to learn, so if you learn, then you're being successful. As long as you continue to show a love for the Lord & His Word & a desire to learn what you can, then to me that's success. I don't really have any other standard than just that you learn as much as you can & you continue to love the Lord & really love His Word & love us. We don't know what the Lord has in store for you or what He wants, He knows, but we certainly don't, so how can we say what success is?
         3. WHEN WE HAD FAITHY COME TO STAY WITH US, FOR EXAMPLE, WE DIDN'T KNOW HOW LONG WE WERE GOING TO KEEP HER. We might have kept her forever or we might have had her go after a month, we didn't know what we were going to do, it was all in the Lord's hands! After Magdalene had been with us awhile, we were planning to possibly have her stay permanently because she's good on paper work, but the Lord had something else in mind. So do we say she failed because she didn't end up doing what we originally had in mind? Of course not!--In fact, she was successful because she learned the lessons the Lord wanted to teach her! So you see, we can't really say what success is, except that you learn the lessons the Lord has brought you here for. And the Lord knows what lessons those are, we don't! So who are we to say exactly what success is other than that you're obedient & you're faithful to the Word & to the Lord & that you love the Lord! (See also No.1928)

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