Gift by Alan Jones In our movement into the mystery of God, everything that happens to us is potential GIFT; our wounds, our disappointments, our idiosyncrasies, and our failures. This is not to glorify pain and sorrow, but to affirm that such things can be transformed into GIFT. The recovered alcoholic has the GIFT of speaking to other alcoholics in a way which a non-alcoholic cannot. The woman who has suffered a nervous breakdown has the terrible gift of knowing what total mental collapse is like and can listen sympathetically to others under stress. The man for whom sexuality is a persistent and unresolved problem can minister to others in a way in which a person who has "no problems" cannot. All these people have peculiar GIFTS, which those who have been neither tested nor stretched do not have. The Christian assumes that everything we are and that has happened to us is capable of being transfigured into GIFT...it is not difficult to understand why some people fall into despair when their hurt has no outlet through which it might be transformed.       114 N. Glendora Avenue, Suite #124, Glendora, CA 91741, U.S.A. (626) 963-6683 questions@livinstonesministry.org