Please do not take this as an accusation. I am simply pleading with you to examine your own heart. Please ask yourself, “Would I really want to see Dale fail in his mission? I can understand how that you could wish that I would leave you alone and shut down this Website and delete all of the posts that I have posted, but you know as well as I that such thoughts are not realistic. There really is, in essence, two outcomes to this road that you and I are on. Either God truly has sent me on this quest for you, or I am a nut that has an incurable obsession over you. There is no middle ground.
If I am that nut, I will most certainly come to an unpleasant end. I will fail to get anywhere close to Singapore, and my infamy will live on for several years to come. Who knows how long my Website will continue to stay up and running? If anything, my demise would probably spur some popularity for some time to come, before slowly petering out over time.
More than that, has it ever been said that my demise would be to your benefit? I do not believe that you would feel that way, yet perhaps somehow somewhere there have been whispers of that suggestion in the air.
Would it not be better that my quest for you be a genuine command from God? Even if I were to die in my attempt, it would prove that my love for you is a true and a pure love and that I am a true man of integrity. Is it not better to have a true man of integrity bidding for your soul?
Lenticular Cloud over Harold’s Cross Dublin Ireland, Omnisource5 – 2015
My friend Bee,
I hope that you are beginning to see that this entire enterprise truly is all about you. Is it evident to you that I am not trying to glorify myself? This is all a pretty strange way of going about things, if that was my intent.
Please understand that I have never wanted to cause you stress, anxiety, fear, anger, or any other unpleasant feelings or emotions. I know that many of the things that I have written to you have caused you grief, sorrow, and pain. There are certain things that I knew at the time that I wrote them would be a discomfort to you, but there are other things that I have written where I did not foresee tears in your eyes. However, I have always been careful to be as truthful with you as I could possibly ever be to anyone. I have leaned very heavily upon God to lead me as I write to you, to be certain that I really am being truthful with you.
This is the problem. Often times, the truth can be painful, but it is only by facing up to the truth that we can understand what is wrong and where the deception, the lies, and the subtlety exists in our lives. The truth is a light that reveals the darkness. Without the truth, we are unable to see the darkness in our lives.
In all soberness and sincerity, I have never knowingly allowed myself to say anything to you that I thought would cause you pain unless it was for the specific purpose to help you understand the truth. It is out of love that I have thought to cause you to suffer, so that you might know the truth and to be able to see the darkness and to be free from that darkness. Is it not better that you suffer sorrow and pain for a season in order to discover and to take hold of eternal joy and light, than it is to live in an undisturbed darkness until you finally realize that you will never ever be free from that darkness – a adarkness that continually becomes ever more dark? I have only ever wanted you to be happy and filled with joy, but you will never be able to find true happiness and to live in untethered joy as long as you are living in darkness.
Person In A Space Suit Waiting At The Bus Stop, Tom Leishman 2020
My dear friend,
It is hard to believe that it has been two whole months since I last posted a letter to you. When I started working on the Bible studies, I very quickly became inundated with that effort. I found that I did not have time for anything else. Virtually everything in my life has been put on the backburner. Even those daily and weekly activities (such as house cleaning and hygiene) that we all must do in order to keep ourselves fit for living have suffered because of my effort in producing these Bible Studies.
I knew long before I started work on these Bible Studies that they were going to be a very big challenge for me, but now that I am doing them, I find that it is a far greater effort than I could ever have imagined. It is somewhat humorous; because, when the idea first came to me, I was envisioning that I would simply be reading the text of the Bible to you. And nothing else! (This was before God gave me the errand to circumnavigate.) I had this idea that I would set up a blog site with the main purpose of communicating my own love to you in a way that you might come to realize the true nature of my love for you. I thought that if I did it that way, that you might understand that I genuinely never had any desires or intentions to take anything from you.
(To this very day, I am still completely perplexed as you why you ever thought that I wanted to exploit you in any way at all. How could my affections for you have been so completely misunderstood? From where, and how, did you ever arrive at such a dreadful conclusion?)
I figured that if I communicated to you in the form of blog posts (and the like) that you might see that I am honestly not seeking for nor expecting anything in return. Although, I have told you this before, but what can I do? You are trapped in a world of darkness my dearest friend! I am not able to comprehend what it is that has a hold on your heart and your mind, but this I do know. It is not of anything that is good and pure!
You say that you do no believe that God exists. You say that the Bible is fake. Oh! But my friend! You know deep in your heart that those words are only lies. You know deep in your heart that there is a God. You know that you … your very own self … you have a soul! You have a spirit! Where is that spirit of yours going to go when you pass on from this life to the next? What are you going to do when you find yourself in that boundless abyss after your body has died and been buried? What are you going to do when you stand in judgement before that very one that you claim does not exist?
Can you not understand how completely heartbroken I am over you … over your soul? I make no claim over your body or your soul. It is God that wants your soul! God gave you life. God gave you your body and your mind. All He is asking is for you to believe in Him. God has already provided the salvation for your soul. He simply asks that you believe.
Back on February, 20th 2021, I posted a letter for you titled, “Our Shelter.” You may recall that in that letter I was explaining to you the great paradox that I found myself in, and how I was not able to reconcile the choice between laying down my life for you or for my wife (in a manner of speaking). I said:
“If I had two lives to give, I would gladly give them both so that God’s love would be made real to you and to her. It is a great conflict to my soul! … but in truth, I have never actually had a choice in the matter.”
Ultimately, I finished by proclaiming that “she will not accept it!” I said that she would not accept the perfect love of God that I had attempted to give her for so many years! I even went on to add that, “She will gladly accept my carnal love, but she will not accept God’s true and perfect love.” It was a very harsh thing for me to say, and I certainly heard about it! Especially, from my mother!
I rejoice in my great God and Savior that I have been proven wrong this day! For this day, I have come to understand that I did not rightly understand the situation.
In part two of the explanation of my gastrointestinal issues (titled, “Not by Bread Alone”), I wrapped up the story of my sore tummy and how I arrived at my current condition. I also introduced the prescription that God has given me to treat my illness and prepare me for my trip around the Globe, a fast. The interesting thing is that He has not told me how long I am supposed to be on this fast for. As of today, I have been fasting for nine straight days. For some reason, I suspect that I will be on this fast for a total of 21 days, but God has yet to confirm that notion. For all I know it could be 40 days. Perhaps, He does not want me freak out at the thought that I have 32 days more to go, so He simply is not telling me.
I find that God does that very thing quite often with me. There are facts that He will not give me until the very last minute; because, He knows that it would crush me if I knew certain details any sooner than necessary. It is a great comfort to rest in God’s infinite understanding and knowledge, and to trust that He always knows what it best. When I am truly following His will, I never have to worry about dark the path that is ahead of me. He provides a path through the menacing gauntlet every time! Yet I do not understand why it is, but I often worry and fret regardless. God has been faithful to deliver me time and again – practically every day of my life – and I still cannot seem to remember that fact, until I stop for a moment, pray, and reflect on all His goodness.
In my last post I mentioned the fact that the fungal infection that I am fighting against is an outbreak of Geotrichum candidum in two different areas of my large intestines: in the cecum and in the descending colon. I also mentioned that I have tried many different treatment protocols over the years, and that none of them have ever been effective enough to overcome the outbreak. This is true even after I made adjustments to target Geotrichum candidum specifically, and my supposition for this condition is that the infection has taken up root in my appendix.
The problem is that there is no way to delivery enough of any anti-fungal agent to the areas of infection in order to completely wipe it out. I have come remarkably close a few different times, but in the end, I simply cannot get to the foothold that it has established deep inside my appendix. What I have determined is that the only way it can be fully exterminated is to starve is out. I have to stop feeding the fungal colony, which means that I have to stop eating. Moreover, I must be very careful not to drink any more water than necessary, as water aids in the survival of the fungus.
