DFO 83522/9/79

63. SOMETIMES I THINK SHE WONDERED WHY GOD LET IT HAPPEN!—Well, now you & I & all of us know! Hallelujah!—It began the Family!—But at least she never did that to me—she never ran away, off with some other man!—Well, not until very many years later, anyhow, after I had run off with quite a few other woman!—Ha! So I don't blame her.

64. BUT SHE CERTAINLY NEVER DESERTED THE CHILDREN! In fact, she deserted me for the children many times! Sometimes when I begged her to come with me & needed her & wanted her, she would refuse because of the children, said she had to stay home with the kids. Maybe she was right, although it led me into a lot of problems & difficulties & scrapes, at least I learned a lot out there on the road alone with a lot of other women!

65. I GOT TO KNOW WHAT THE WORLD IS LIKE & their problems & what's wrong with them‚ & to find out that theirs were just like mine, & all we all needed was the Lord & His Love & love for each other. PTL! So I was able to help a lot of other lonely people‚ too, & a lot of other lonely people helped me, despite Mom's absence. But meantime, she was busy at least taking care of the kids. She didn't ever desert them.

66. I DON'T SEE HOW ANY WOMAN WITH FOUR SMALL CHILDREN CAN THINK THAT IT'S GOD'S WILL FOR THEM TO UP & TAKE OFF & DESERT THEIR POOR HUSBAND & LITTLE CHILDREN for another man, even to so–call serve the Lord full-time! I'm a lot more inclined to believe that they have just gotten so desperate they're ready to run just to get away from it all! I'll tell you, it's no easy job taking care of a bunch of little kids & a worrisome husband & a whole house & it's meals & dishes & washes & everything else, with kids screaming & dressing & undressing & whatnot, bottles going every which way, & diapers, those never-ending diapers!

67. I CAN HARDLY BLAME SOME WOMEN FOR ALMOST GIVING UP & wanting to just take off for parts unknown, anywhere away from it all! Maybe a mother needs a little vacation once in awhile, to take a week or two off.—This one took two months off from her husband, I suppose with the other man, & apparently with the consent of his wife—I presume she was staying with them.

68. SHE DOESN'T TELL US WHAT HAPPENED TO HER POOR HUSBAND & THEIR FOUR POOR LITTLE CHILDREN & what they did in the meantime. But I can only surmise that he must have been left stuck with the kids & had to take care of them all by himself! Maybe he had a helper—I don't know. But that's a pretty tough blow to any man to have his wife desert not only him but her own tiny tots & run off with somebody else!

69. I JUST DON'T SEE HOW ANY TRUE CHILD OF GOD, TRUE CHRISTIAN, TRUE HANDMAIDEN OF GOD CAN SO DESERT HER HUSBAND & SMALL CHILDREN for somebody else, just because she's got some screwy idea that it's of God, & that this other man is better than her husband & more spiritual & serving God more & much more desirable, more loving & more kind—& all of that! Maybe he is!—So what?—That has got absolutely nothing to do with it! It may have something to do with her falling in love with him & going crazy for him & wild for him & deserting her family for him! But it certainly has absolutely nothing to do with, or to excuse her for‚ deserting her own family & her own husband & her own children! So I simply cannot, do not agree with it, never have, & you'll never find it in any of the letters! I've said time & again in so many Letters:

70. WHEN GOD GIVES YOU CHILDREN, THEN YOUR FIRST DUTY TO GOD IS TO THOSE CHILDREN! That is God's work! That is your job & that is God's service, & it's a full-time service, & you'd better get with it & do it & be thankful for it & be a faithful handmaiden & take care of those kids the way you ought to, & stick together for their sake to provide for them a happy home with an uncomplaining mother & a happy father!

71. NO MATTER WHAT YOU HAVE TO DO, TAKE CARE OF THOSE KIDS!—And raise them in the Lord & His service.—That's your job‚ & you have absolutely no excuse for doing anything else whatsoever!—Particularly not running off & deserting them, & yearning for greener fields afar or some other man or some other woman or someplace without those kids!—That's just absolutely terrible that any mate—husband or wife or otherwise—could ever run off & desert your mate & your children for someone else or something else or whatever‚ or even supposedly for "God's service"!

72. "BUT I WANT TO GO BACK TO THE FIELD, BACK INTO THE LORD'S FULL-TIME SERVICE! I'm sick & tired of the System & this house & this husband & all these squawling little brats, & I want to go back to the field, back to full-time service for the Lord with the man I love!" My God! What a hell of a travesty against the Truth!

73. HOW COULD YOU BE SO DECEIVED, so misled & so horribly out of the Spirit & out of the will of God & totally deluded by the Devil! How could you possibly think you could do anything else but the job that God has obviously given you to do as His full–time service for the time being: Your husband & your children! Well, at least now you know what I mean by, "You may be sorry you did hear from me!"

74. PERSONALLY‚ DEAR LITTLE GIRL, MY OPINION IS THAT YOU'VE JUST GOTTEN SO TIRED & FRUSTRATED worn down with family care & home & husband & childcare & the job that God has given you to do, & to dreaming of the far-off dreamland & dream man, some-place to get away from it all, supposedly in "God's full-time service" on some far-flung mission field, that sometimes I think that the temptation is merely grass on the other side of the fence that looks greener, & you would like to get over there & away from where you are & what you are.

75. WHERE YOU ARE & WHAT YOU ARE NOW IS THE FULL-TIME JOB GOD HAS MADE FOR YOU TO DO, PARTICULARLY TO RAISE YOUR CHILDREN! You have absolutely no excuse for doing anything else whatsoever! I don't tolerate it, I don't approve of it, I have never approved of it! I have always disapproved of breaking up homes with small children, couples breaking up who have small children!—Even if it is only one child, I just don't approve of it!—Unless one of the mates literally goes back on the Lord & back on His service & completely out of the will of God & leaves you & the child & the Family! Then I don't feel you're under any obligation.

76. "IF THE UNBELIEVING DEPART, LET HIM DEPART!" I don't know under what circumstances you left the field. All I know is that God does say: "He that having put his hand to the plough & looking back is not worthy of Me!" Jesus said! (1Cor.7:15; Lk.9:62.) You were certainly behind a monumental plough out there in Indonesia! What made you decide to not only look back, but to turn back & even go back home to Holland? I don't know. Only God knows‚ & maybe it wasn't your fault.

77. MAYBE IT WAS HIS FAULT‚ maybe because of your desertion & your love for another man & running off with somebody else & deserting him & your children for months on end, maybe that broke his heart & his spirit & got him so discouraged that it made him give up & feel like a failure. Maybe it made him feel like you'd failed him & God failed him, so he just couldn't take it anymore & decided to go home. Then maybe when you saw he was going to go home with the children & without you, maybe you just didn't want to lose your children & so maybe that's why you went home, so he wouldn't take them & go off without you. I don't know.

78. I'M SURE THERE HAVE BEEN MANY CASES SIMILAR in which one of the mates has given up on the field & decided to go home‚ & the other one simply followed. Well, if you're mated & you have small children, then I would say that's what you may have to do. You have to stick together for their sake, & the husband is really the boss when it comes to the natural family, & God's Word clearly says as plain as day many times, that wives should obey their husbands. So if he wanted to go home, if he could not take it any more‚ he couldn't take the field anymore, he couldn't take your affairs anymore, & he wanted to go home & just settle down with his family & take care of them, maybe it was his fault. Although I don't know as I would much blame him, considering the way you deserted him! So, whatever it was, I don't know.

79. ONE OF THE FIRST SCRIPTURES I GOT WHEN I FIRST HEARD ABOUT YOUR CASE before even reading your letter was such a condemning Scripture that I didn't even want to tell Maria, because I thought‚ "Well, maybe I'd better wait till I read it & see if it's true!" As a result, because I wouldn't receive it by faith right away, the Lord even let me forget it for quite awhile until I began to write this Letter to you! Then it finally came back to me‚ & that is the first Scripture I got, the first answer:

80. "IF THE UNBELIEVING DEPART, LET HIM DEPART!" Now‚ whether that applies to you or to him‚ I don't know. Only you & God & maybe others know that. If his faith failed & he left the field, maybe you should have stayed & split the children or whatever.—If he was really leaving God's work & the Family & out of God's will & leaving the plough & quitting his job for the Lord, maybe you should have had some kind of a settlement between you, & you should have stayed on‚ if you had the faith for it.

81. BUT APPARENTLY YOU DIDN'T, BECAUSE YOU WENT BACK WITH HIM & you're still with him. So if it was he that got out of God's will & went back‚ but you followed him, you're just as much to blame, perhaps, as he is. Only you two & God know who is really to blame for your both having left the field & the plough & full-time service of God in the far distant missionary field where you were very fruitful & where you survived five years & four children & God never failed you!—Whether you both have the faith to go back to the field with four small children‚ I don't know—it's pretty tough! But whatever you do, I know this:

82. GOD INTENDS FOR YOU TO STICK TO THE FULL-TIME JOB OF CARING FOR YOUR HUSBAND‚ HOME & CHILDREN! The full-time service for God that He has now given you is to take care of your small children, your family, your husband & your home, wherever you are—whether here or there or on the field or at home! That is your job! That is God's work!—Taking care of God's children that He has given you to take care of!

83. MY GOD! HAVEN'T YOU READ MY LETTERS?—I thought you said you read the Letters? You'd better read them over again! "God's Gifts Are God's Work!" (No.s 744-746.) I'm talking about children! They are a gift of God, but they're hard work!—But they are His work! They are His full-time service! Now you just get busy with it & take care of them, & take care of that dear poor frail husband of yours‚ & be good to him & love him‚ & repent of your sins & your waywardness & your infidelity & your unfaithfulness to him & your family, & get busy & serve them & serve God along with them! I love you & I feel sorry for you, but I'm angry with you for what you have done!

84. GOD IS ANGRY WITH YOUR MURMURING!—And He's displeased with your blaming it all on others instead of yourself! Your poor husband has worked hard to try to keep you & his little family together, while you've done a lot that could've broken it up!

85. NOW YOU GET BUSY & BE THANKFUL you have such a good husband & wonderful full time service for God taking care of the precious children He's given you!—And KWITCHERBELLYAKIN! Thank God you've stuck with them most of the time thus far, & we hope you will continue in this, His full-time service! GBAKYACTMYAB to your family & others!—Love,—Dad.

(P.S. WE NOW HEAR YOUR DEAR HUSBAND paid your way to have your baby with your lover, & also to fly you a helper from Malaysia! It seems he's the one who could be complaining! You'd better hush before God gives you something to cry about!—D.)

Copyright (c) 1997 by The Family