Pressure Points [antikvár]

My credibility and ability to survive as a committed Christian were under threat. I needed answers to some big questions. 1 Behind the Masks The world's least successful kite-flyer was a Californian whose kite blew into a high-voltage power cable and caught on fire. Falling to the ground, it started a brush fire which destroyed or damaged 385 houses, engulfed 740 acres of land and caused 3,000 people to be evacuated. Total damage was more than L12 milHon. It does me a world of good to read a story hke that. It reminds me that I am not, after all, the most inept person on earth. At times that can be very welcome news. But when the books of heroic failures are back on the shelf and we return to swimming through the tide of life, our feelings may become very different. I have met, spoken with and had letters from countless people for whom guilt and the emotion of failure have been overwhelming. Through gritted teeth they have whistled into the full force of the wind of circumstances, assuring all those around them that 'everything is fine'. But in truth—back behind the mask—they are anything but 'fine'. They are just relieved that no one out there really knows what is going on inside. My wife Rosemary and I have shared in that experience. Within months of the birth of our fourth son, surgery revealed that a growth on Rosemary's thyroid was cancerous. Skilful though the surgeon had been, his bedside manner had all the charm of napalm. That experience, together with the treatment that followed and a string of other negative circumstances— 11