And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his
glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

John 1:14¹

Dear Friends in Christ,

   By the time you receive this newsletter the Advent and Christmas season will be fully with us. Just now as I write, however, it is the week before Thanksgiving, and our hearts are full of thanks to God for His manifold blessings upon this ministry, and especially just now for all the Lord did in the lives of the precious ones who attended the Pastoral Care Ministry School in the Netherlands. Many nations were represented there, and it was a great privilege to greet and interact with people from the podium. Always my chief regret is that I don’t have the time or strength to get to know everyone individually and to thank them for their precious letters and expressions of love.

   Along with a heart full of thanksgiving, however, I greet you with some sadness; for I must announce that it is now imperative that I semi-retire. That means I have hosted my last five-day Pastoral Care Ministry School, a sobering statement to have to make after so many decades of these wonderful gatherings and schools of healing prayer. There is no blessing greater than what comes to us as we meet in Christ’s precious name and healing presence. Perhaps later, with some physical recovery, I can come in for a lecture or two when the team members will be leading a full week’s conference (a very exciting thing to anticipate!)². In the meantime my physician has ordered a year of complete rest (how does one get such a thing?), and I am complying since there is no other reasonable choice. We would be most grateful for your intercessions for God’s guidance for us, and especially for Mark Pertuit and Jean Holt, as we prayerfully explore how the legacy of PCM can best be carried forward. We shall keep you informed by newsletter and the websites.

Blessed are the Meek

Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
Matt. 5:5

No man appears in safety before the public eye unless he first relishes obscurity. No man is safe in speaking unless he loves to be silent. No man rules safely unless he is willing to be ruled. No man commands safely unless he has learned well how to obey. No man rejoices safely unless he has within him the testimony of a good conscience.
Thomas à Kempis (ca. 1421), Imitation of Christ³

   Our venue in Holland was close to the site where Thomas à Kempis lived, wrote, and taught. His work has been very special to millions of Christians down through the centuries since he lived and ministered so effectively. He so well understood and lived out the beatitude of meekness, for he knew: “It is vanity to hunt after honors and to climb to high degree” (Imitation of Christ, p. 2). All the truly great minds and hearts are those who eschew, as carefully as they can, the vanity that leads to pride and self-seeking in ministry.

   In my books and in the latest, Heaven’s Calling: A Memoir of One Soul’s Steep Ascent, I’ve written, if ever so briefly, of the value of prayers for hiddenness in the lives of God’s ministers. I saw these prayers as even doubly necessary for women in their need to protect the “true” feminine. Men may take issue with me there, and rightly so, for there is a meekness that goes along with the desire for a proper hiddenness, and men surely need (and perhaps have a more difficult time grasping) this great virtue than do their feminine counterparts.

   I’ve long been somewhat stymied by our Lord’s words in Matthew 5:5, and I have many, many times looked up their meaning in different commentaries. On my return home from the Netherlands, my new ESV Study Bible with its commentary was waiting for me. Immediately I turned to this text and rejoiced in what the commentary said about it:

The meek are the gentle (cf. 11:29), those who do not assert themselves to further their own agendas in their own strength, but who will nevertheless, inherit the earth because they trust in God to direct the outcome of events.⁴

What a promise is bound up in the gaining of this virtue! This definition makes Psalm 37:11 all the more precious and meaningful because we know who and what the meek are: “But the meek shall inherit the land and delight themselves in abundant peace.” And we see how once again we are to model after our Lord when he says: “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls” (Matt. 11:29).

Recommended Reading

Mark Pertuit reviews an important book by Dr. Gerard van den Aardweg, a book that prayer counselors and therapists should know about and recommend.

The Battle for Normality: A Guide for (Self-) Therapy for Homosexuality
By Dr. Gerard van den Aardweg

   A fine book on the healing of homosexuality that is often overlooked is Dr. van den Aardweg’s The Battle for Normality. Many books on this topic stress the importance of dealing with injuries to one’s identity as a gendered person. Early-life relationships with parents (particularly the same-sex parent) and with one’s childhood peers are explored. Avenues to healing are then detailed, and these typically involve catharsis (getting the pain up and out) and learning to relate nonsexually to people of the same sex. Dr. van den Aardweg’s book includes all of this while adding an essential, yet regularly neglected, element in the healing process, namely, being emancipated from a childish, egoistic stance.

   When people seek healing for a homosexual neurosis, he argues, much time is typically spent on verbalizing pain from the past, and yet the person is frequently speaking/processing from a childish, me-centered position. As he once said, “Psychology is stuck in a pre-adolescent stage of development”--i.e., too much attention is given to feelings and to the dramatizing of them, to catharsis. To step out of the childish posture (particularly by combating self-pity and tendencies to overdramatize) is to articulate the story of one’s life from an altogether different point of view--and to already experience much healing. When the person fights the tragic, whiny, “inner complaining child”, pain can be brought up and out, yet from an adult standpoint that makes growth far more speedy and reality-oriented.

   What is particularly helpful about this book is that it is written for people who desire healing for their homosexual neuroses and yet who cannot find able (or willing) therapists. The book therefore has the benefit of being both very insightful as well as very practical. The author’s comments on fighting self-pity through the use of humor, as well as on the role of virtue and self-discipline in the healing of the soul, are fantastic.

   Dr. van den Aardweg is a Dutch psychologist who has treated persons struggling with same-sex desires for over 40 years. The Battle for Normality may be purchased through Ignatius Press. (Ft. Collins, Colo.: Ignatius Press, 1997-03.)

The Connected Child: Bring Hope and Healing to Your Adoptive Family
By Karyn Purvis, David Cross, and Wendy Sunshine

I have heard extraordinary raves about the helpfulness of this book from adoptive parents and only had to scan it briefly to see how the content parallels in many ways and is complementary to the teaching and work of healing prayer in PCM. I asked a member of our team who was seriously abused as a child within the context of her own family to review the book. After a thorough study of the work, she exclaimed over how strongly the book spoke into her life. I believe it will be a valuable help for many who pray with others, helping them deal with the difficulties in life related to failures to properly attach first of all to the mother or mother figure, and then to others. The book contains valuable medical information explaining the differing chemical imbalances that result from these failures and remain within the body until rightly diagnosed and treated. (New York: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2007. Further information is available from the Institute for Child Development)

Heaven’s Calling: A Memoir of One Soul’s Steep Ascent

My thanks to all of you who have written in response to reading my new book. The Lord seems to have given it wings, and to have such beautiful “reactions” from all over the world (and so quickly) has been amazing to me. So many identified with differing parts of my story, and saw their own open up before their eyes and with new understanding received healing. It seems the Lord has abundantly answered my prayer that in sharing my story, others would not only be more fully opened to their own, but would see more clearly the call of God upon their own lives.

Under the Mercy,

Leanne Payne

¹Scripture verses are taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version unless otherwise noted. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
²The Lord willing, there is a possibility later of my conducting a school that would meet locally once a week, and should that happen, we will announce it in the newsletter.
³Since it was written in the 1400s, Thomas à Kempis’s Imitation of Christ has been an all-time bestseller.
⁴Study Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Bibles, 2008), p. 1828