October 27, 1977MO—DFO 722

—By Father David

—From a talk to Maria and Sara Davidito.

© July 1978 by the Family of love, CP 748, 00100 Roma, Italia.

1. I DON'T THINK I'VE EVER HEARD A CHILD THAT YOUNG STAMMER, and I've never heard them stammer that badly! I don't think I've ever heard anybody stammer that badly!

2. IT'S JUST AGONY FOR HIM TO TRY TO TALK! It's also almost agony to listen! It hurts me. It really hurts me! It must hurt him too. But you guys just pass it off like it's nothing. It's really Sara's fault. She ought to get desperate with God about it. She took him around that stammerer and wasn't sensitive enough to the Spirit to realise he was being so deeply affected.

3. YOU GUYS BRAY ABOUT HIM and how smart he is and how much he can read and everything, but what good is it if he can't even talk? What good is it if it is agony for him even try to say the simplest things and can hardly express himself! It certainly must be somehow damaging his personality. (Maria: The Lord showed you how he's so sensitive we don't realise how sensitive he is.)

4. IT HURT HIM and I'm afraid it's apt to make him bitter or resentful and even more withdrawn. Well, surely God's not dealing with him. When a child is afflicted God is dealing with the parents or those who are responsible for him.

5. I THINK YOU GIRLS ARE PRETTY PROUD OF HIM. Sara is writing his story and bragging about him and all, but he is so seriously afflicted he can't even talk! He's afflicted, it's pitiful, and it's serious, it's almost like being dumb or tongue-tied, he can barely get it out!

6. I DON'T THINK YOU GIRLS REALLY GET DESPERATE! How much have you and Sara really wept and prayed about it and got desperate with God about it? I think it's serious, especially at his age! It's likely to affect his whole life. You keep trying to brush it off‚ pass it off‚ minimise it, "Oh, it's not so bad," and keep trying to say, "He's better‚ he's better!—When if anything he's worse!

7. I DON'T THINK YOU GUYS ARE REALLY FACING IT LIKE YOU OUGHT TO. He's seriously handicapped and if anything‚ it sounds to me like he's doing worse! And all this bragging about his brilliance and smartness and his ability to read and his vocabulary and all that blah—means absolutely nothing‚ nothing!

8. THE POOR CHILD CAN'T EVEN GET OUT THE SIMPLEST WORDS, CAN'T EVEN TALK‚ can't even speak, can't even express himself, can't even communicate!—Until he gets so frustrated that he just quits and gives up and doesn't even try! I think you people really need to get down to business in prayer and agonising and wrestle with the Lord about the problem and see who God's dealing with and why!

9. I DON'T THINK IT'S MY FAULT, I've prayed and prayed about it and asked God why. I don't think it's my fault, it always comes to me that He's dealing with somebody else.

10. HE'S DEALING WITH ALL OF US I think, because we're not enough concerned about it. We keep brushing it off. But you're his mother and you ought to get concerned, you ought to get desperate with God, cry out to God and beg and plead and pray and agonise before the Lord to deliver.

11. AND HOW DESPERATE HAS SARA GOTTEN? Is she agonising before God, down on her hands and knees and begging God to please deliver him? She ought to be weeping and crying out to God for deliverance for that poor child. She took him to see that stammerer and she didn't even recognise that he was being affected by it! It's really making me angry with her.

12. IT'S JUST AGONY FOR ME TO EVEN BE AROUND HIM, I CAN'T STAND TO SEE HIM SUFFER LIKE THAT! He's suffering, he's suffering! It's like he had some serious physical affliction or handicap or something else that's almost worse. I don't think you girls are at all desperate about it.

13. I THINK GOD'S DEALING WITH YOU FOR BEING SO PROUD OF HIM, bragging about him, how smart he is, how beautiful he is, how much he can read, blah blah!—And he can't even talk, can't even say the simplest thing in order to express himself! It's just agony, agony for him to try, and it's agony for us to listen!

14. YOU'RE JUST GOING ALONG LIKE NOTHING EVEN HAPPENED, like "Oh, he's better, blah blah!" "How much have you wept and cried and prayed in agonising prayer for him? How much has Sara really felt guilty and responsible for being so insensitive to the influence that that stammerer was on him?

15. HOW COME SARA DIDN'T REALISE that her compassion on that stammerer was having such an effect on Davidito?—Taking him over there so often to see him and didn't even realise how it was affecting him!

16. HOW COME SHE NEVER EVEN NOTICED HE WAS STAMMERING?—We had to tell her! Was she just trying to ignore it, was she ashamed of it? I'm really upset, it's pitiful, just pitiful! I'm angry with you girls, I'm really angry! You're not stirring yourselves to call upon the Lord and asking Him to deliver him!

17. HE'S SUFFERING just like he has some physical hurt, but it's almost worse, it's hurting his psyche! He knows there is something wrong with him but he doesn't know what to do about it. I think he's almost resentful at us because we can't help him.

18. IF WE DON'T DO SOMETHING and get some results soon, get some answers from God, it's apt to make him bitter and resentful. I don't think you girls are going to get any answers until you face the facts and confess it. I don't think Sara is going to get any answer from God or God is going to forgive her until she confesses that she was responsible.

19. I HOLD HER RESPONSIBLE for taking him over there. To take him over there and let him catch it is just as serious and she's just as much to blame as if they had some other kind of serious disease that she knew was contagious and took him over there and let him catch it—I'd blame her just as much!

20. IT'S NEGLIGENCE AND CARELESSNESS! My God What a horrible thing to do to a little child‚ then to pass it off and to act like it is a light thing! But it's causing him absolute agony, agony!

21. SOMETIMES HE ACTUALLY BURSTS INTO TEARS BECAUSE HE CAN'T TALK! What the hell good does it do if he can read if he can't talk?—if he can't even communicate the simplest things? I really suffer. I'm too sympathetic! I never could stand to see anybody suffering. I just can't take it to watch him suffer like that!

22. I DON'T EVEN SEE HOW GOD COULD LET HIM SUFFER LIKE THAT! (Weeps) Oh Lord help us to be humble and not hardened and bitter, Lord help him to get better. (Weeps) Oh Jesus, I don't see how You could let that little child suffer like this! Lord forgive us‚ help us Lord Jesus! Forgive Sara!

23. WHY DON'T THEY GET DESPERATE about him, why don't they weep and agonise and pray, Lord? Oh Jesus, it hurts him, he suffers! He's going to be more withdrawn than ever if he's not even talking!

24. IT'S LIKE SARA WAS ENCOURAGING IT by giving that other child so much attention and love and compassion, and now he's doing the same thing to get the same love. He was jealous of her love, and he was so compassionate on the poor little boy himself!

25. IT'S JUST LIKE HE'S DEVELOPED A SYMPATHETIC STAMMER because of it. But I can't understand why she couldn't see it, they couldn't see it and tell that that's what he was doing. that's what was happening. It didn't just happen in a split second. It happened over a period of time. And yet they were so stupid and ignorant and insensitive to his sensitive little soul that they didn't even realise that he was being affected! That's what I can't understand!

26. WHY WEREN'T THEY MORE SENSITIVE TO THE SPIRIT, why didn't they get any warning and realise what was going on? Even right now he regresses back to baby sounds because he can make them easier than trying to talk! Bragging about all of his brilliance and books and all his learning capacity isn't making him talk!

27. I WONDER WHEN SHE IS GOING TO GET AROUND TO CONFESSING THAT HE CAN'T EVEN TALK, he can't say one word without the greatest agony, trying to form one word!—And can't talk as well as a little baby! I think God's striking at your pride, yours and hers, I really believe it, I really believe it!

28. I DON'T THINK IT WAS ME I prayed and prayed and prayed, but I don't think it was me. Sometimes I think maybe you girls are pushing him too hard, you push him so fast! I don't know but I think it's hard on him. I don't know.

29. MAYBE READING WILL GET HIM OUT OF IT, help him. At least if he learns something he can do where he doesn't have to stammer but can read silently—maybe that will be a compensation if he could at least read silently even if he can't talk—it's some compensation!

30. I LOOK BACK ON WHEN I WAS SMALL, those young years—I didn't stammer but I was so withdrawn I didn't want to talk at all‚ I didn't want to see people or be with people or talk at all, I was so shy‚ so withdrawn. I just dug into books and stayed away from people.

31. HE DOESN'T HAVE TO TALK HE'S HANDICAPPED he is seriously, seriously handicapped. I have never seen a child with a worse speech impediment, except for children who were dumb and couldn't talk at all! And you girls are not admitting it, you're not confessing it, you're not telling God that it's serious.

32. YOU'RE NOT REALLY GETTING DESPERATE ABOUT IT! You just pass it off—"Oh, well, it's not bad, he's better today‚ he's blah blah blah blah! He can read 1000 words, he does so well with his phonetics and he can blah blah blah and he can sound it out, he can do this and he can do that and he's so smart."

33. WHEN HE CAN'T EVEN TALK! It's agonising. He's apt to get bitter and resentful and rebellious, all kinds of things because of it. Because he knows it's not his fault, he can't help it, so he's bound to look around to blame it on somebody else.

34. IT'S A NATURAL HUMAN REACTION, so he looks at us with resentment. He looks at me—I can hardly even stand to have him look at me! He looks at me like,

35. "WHY DON'T YOU HELP ME? Well, why can't you help me? None of you are helping me! Nobody is helping me‚ nobody cares enough to help me, you don't even try!

36. "YOU TRY TO IGNORE IT, BUT I'M HANDICAPPED! I hurt and I'm really suffering because I can't even talk!" It's enough to turn him against Jesus! He could say "Well, why doesn't Jesus heal me?"

37. I DON'T THING YOU GIRLS HAVE GOTTEN DESPERATE ENOUGH AT ALL I don't see you crying and weeping about it. This is the first time I've seen you cry about it. I haven't seen Sara weep about it and agnoise in prayer about it. I haven't heard her yet confess it was her fault.

38. SHE WAS SUPPOSED TO BE TAKING CARE OF DAVIDITO‚ not little Ben—Davidito—not even Baba! It was her going over there to see Baba that caused the trouble.

39. IT'S A DESPERATE SITUATION! It's beginning to affect his personality‚ it's beginning to affect his outlook on life. It's like. "What good is this house and all these material blessings and all these teachers and helpers and attention and everything else, when, I can't even talk and you're not helping me?

40. "GOD IS NOT HELPING ME! You talk about Jesus but He doesn't help me!" (Maria: We give him all those verses on healing and everything—he was even talking to his rabbit about healing!)

41. IN THE FIRST PLACE, UNTIL WE CONFESS, GOD'S NOT GOING TO FORGIVE.—"Whoso covereth his sins shall not prosper, but he that confesseth his sins shall be forgiven." (Pr.28:13.) Now I think you girls are covering your sin, you are covering it up!

42. YOU ARE TRYING TO MINIMISE IT and belittle it: "Well, it's not serious, it's not bad‚ he'll get over it‚ he's better today, he didn't stammer at all such and such a time, blah blah blah!"

43. YOU'RE NOT REALLY PRAYING and agonising like he is! He's agonising to even try to talk, but you're not even agonising in prayer for him! Maybe it would do him good for him to see you weep over him and to cry for him!

44. I THINK HE FIGURES NOBODY CARES, "Here I am suffering and I'm in agony and I can't even say the simplest words and yet nobody cares, nobody cries for me, nobody weeps and agonises over me! Nobody really prays for me, nobody helps me! They just try to ignore it, they don't even talk about it, they don't even want to talk about it!

45. "IT'S LIKE SOME KIND OF LOATHSOME DISEASE THAT NOBODY EVEN WANTS TO MENTION!"—Yet everybody knows it, it is plain and visible and obvious to everybody. Oh, Jesus, please help that poor little boy, Lord! Lord bless him, my God have mercy! Forgive us, O God, for our pride and our bragging, when we can't even teach him the simplest thing—how to talk!

46. HOW MUCH HAVE YOU SHOWED DAVIDITO THAT YOU ARE CONCERNED? You act like you are trying to cover it up and ignore it because you don't want to make him conscious of it. My God, he couldn't possibly be more conscious of it! He certainly knows it when he can't even get out one word and just quits and bursts into tears instead!

47. DO YOU THINK HE DOESN'T KNOW WHAT'S HAPPENING? Do you think he's not conscious of it? But you act like nothing is happening and nothing is wrong. You act like you're not even conscious of it. What effects does that have on him?

48. YOU GUYS GO ON ACTING LIKE NOTHING HAS HAPPENED, nothing is wrong‚ everything is fine, and like you're not even conscious of it! He must think‚ "Well, what the hell is the matter with these people? Don't they know that I am suffering and I'm in agony and I'm conscious of it already? And yet they are acting like nothing's wrong, they ignore it like there is nothing even happening!"

49. HE WAS BETTER FOR AWHILE, HE WAS BETTER WHEN WE PRAYED ABOUT IT. You have to really get desperate in prayer that the Lord will make it go away and not let it come back again. It's like a spirit, a hindering spirit that is trying to tie his tongue!

50. YOU ARE BRAGGING ABOUT OUR CHILDREN and setting Davidito up as a shining example to the whole Family when he is probably one of the most seriously afflicted children in the Family!

51. WHAT GOOD IS ALL OF HIS INTELLIGENCE and all of his learning and all his highly touted and boasted teaching and reading and blah blah, when he can't even talk without suffering in agony trying to get out one syllable, until he even gives up and quits trying and starts crying!

52. YOU TALK ABOUT GOD AND JESUS AND PRAYER AND HEALING and all that, but if God doesn't do anything for him, then he can't understand that. I haven't seen you girls desperate about it. You just try to brush it aside and pass it off like it's nothing‚ both of you!

53. WELL, I PRAYED DESPERATELY THIS MORNING, and it came to me that God is dealing with you girls and your pride! Yes, he can read 1000 words but he can't even say one! He looks so sober and so sad all the time, he's beginning to look almost resentful.

54. HE DOESN'T ALWAYS HAVE TO TALK, but I've seen you do it time and time again, almost force him to talk: "Davidito‚ don't you so and so?" asking him questions, forcing him to talk when he doesn't even want to talk. It's agony for him to talk!

55. WHY FORCE HIM TO TALK? I'd teach him to read to himself if you can't teach him to talk. Now if he really wants to read aloud and he asks to read, then that's different. Maybe that's the one thing he has left to lean on, a little self-confidence because he can read.

56.IT DOESN'T SEEM TO BE AS DIFFICULT FOR HIM TO READ AS IT IS FOR HIM TO TALK. So that's good if that is his attitude towards reading. If it's a kind of an escape for him‚ then you should encourage him to read.

57. IT MIGHT DO HIM GOOD TO SEE YOU WEEP FOR HIM‚ to see Sara weep for him and show we are suffering with him and sympathising with him. He looks at me almost like he resents me. He looks at me like, "You're supposed to be a prophet of God, why don't you help me?"

58. YOU HAVEN'T GOTTEN SERIOUS ENOUGH about that boy and confessing how bad it is, you are not even admitting to yourselves how bad it is! If you won't even confess to yourselves how bad it is, how are you going to confess it to God and get desperate enough that God will help?

59. WHEN I WAS PRAYING FOR HIM in front of you guys, the verse I got was, "No man stirreth himself to call upon Me." "In the day that you call upon Me with a whole heart, I will answer." (Isa.64:7 and Jer.29:13.)

60. BUT YOU PEOPLE HAVEN'T CALLED ON THE LORD WITH A WHOLE HEART. You haven't really been stirring yourselves to agonise in prayer for him. How much do you weep for him, how much do you suffer with him?

61. YOU TRY TO IGNORE IT and act like nothing's wrong, when he knows himself there's something terribly wrong and he can't understand it and can't understand why you're not concerned. Oh Jesus, help us to help him! He's suffering, he's getting withdrawn to where he doesn't even want to talk!

62. WHEN I WAS LITTLE I can remember them calling me a shy quiet child. I didn't stammer, I just didn't talk at all! I didn't want to talk to anybody, I didn't even want to be with anybody but my mother. I didn't even like people. I think I got to where I almost hated people, I didn't even like to be around them or have them around! I just didn't communicate at all!

63. WELL, ONE THING IT DID, I THINK IT MADE ME COMMUNICATE MORE WITH THE LORD, think more in my own mind and heart. I didn't think very good things about people‚ I didn't like them. Davidito's suffering and nobody cares, nobody really worries about him or even stirs themselves to really agonise in prayer for him. Well, he can feel it, he knows it, that nobody seems to be concerned‚ nobody seems to care.

64. IT'S SERIOUS WHEN A PERSON QUITS TRYING AND GIVES UP. This is not something done in a corner, it's not something hidden. It's something that everybody knows about, the whole Family here knows about it. But nobody is mentioning it, like it's some unmentionable, the thing that you just don't talk about.

65. I THINK YOU NEED TO GET BEFORE THE WHOLE FAMILY AND CONFESS IT TO EACH OTHER. He's just as afflicted as if he were sick, really sick, and it's apt to do more harm to his personality, his psyche and his whole outlook on life than if he was actually sick with a disease!

66. NOW I WANT TO SEE YOU GUYS CONFESS to the Family that you haven't really been honest with yourselves or with us. You've just been trying to ignore it or pass it off as nothing. I mean there were days, weeks there when Sara didn't even realise what caused him to stammer.

67. I GOT DESPERATE WITH GOD AND ASKING GOD FOR AN ANSWER AND HE GAVE IT to me immediately. Why the hell didn't you get the answer sooner? Huh? You're supposed to be his teachers, you're his mother, you're with him and Sara's with him all the time. Why didn't you guys get concerned enough to get an answer, why did it have to be me when I don't even see him that much? Huh? Why did it have to be me to recognise he was stammering seriously?

68. IT'S LIKE EVERYBODY HAS BEEN TRYING TO COVER, nobody has been honest and confessed that it's serious. Everybody is afraid to admit it, just because he's our little boy, how could he be so seriously afflicted? We don't even want to admit it.

69. IT'S LIKE IGNORING THAT HE HAS A HIGH FEVER: "Oh, well it's not bad, it's nothing, he'll get over it", instead of doing something about it and getting desperate with God and praying and agonising in prayer and really stirring yourself to call upon the Lord with your whole heart!

70. INSTEAD OF GETTING DELIVERANCE YOU JUST MINIMISE THE AFFLICTION. Instead of getting desperate enough to ask God to heal, you just say, "Oh, it's nothing, he'll get over it, he was better today, blah blah." Well‚ that's not helping him now, he's hurting now‚ he's suffering now, it hurts him! It's like he's saying,

71." LOOK HOW SICK I AM AND NOBODY EVEN NOTICES IT! They act like they don't even notice, they don't even care‚ they just ignore it!" Oh Jesus‚ Lord Jesus forgive us‚ help us Lord! (Weeps!)

72. HE BREAKS AND BURSTS INTO TEARS OVER IT! WHEN DO YOU BURST INTO TEARS OVER IT? When does Sara burst into tears over it, when does Alfred burst into tears over it or any of the staff? When do they really take him into their arms and cuddle him and show him how sorry they are, how much compassion they have and how much they love him? I mean he needs extra love now, extra extra love! Oh Jesus‚ Lord, in Jesus name, help us Lord!

73. IN THE MIDST OF ALL THAT CONFUSION HE'S EATING HIS BREAKFAST! I think it's very hard on his nerves to sit right there in the middle of that kitchen with all that noise and confusion and all those people. I know I wouldn't like it. He's very sensitive and he's very nervous.

74. HE'S NOT AT EASE AROUND A LOT OF PEOPLE, yet he has to sit there in the middle of that kitchen in the midst of all that bedlam and all those people and all that noise and confusion and try to eat his breakfast. He can't get the individual attention that he needs there as a handicapped child, everybody is too busy with everything else but him.

75. (MARIA: DO YOU THINK IT'S BETTER TO JUST SEPARATE HIM FROM OTHER PEOPLE as much as possible, except just one or two people at a time?) Well, if I were he I think that's what I would like. All that confusion and noise just makes him withdrawn into his shell even more.

76. (MARIA: AND AT MEAL TIMES, like dinner time and lunch time, do you think he should eat separately?) Well, I think he likes to be with the Family sometimes. (Maria: Maybe if he just doesn't have to talk, huh?) It really draws attention to his handicap when he is really put on the spot publicly and he starts to stutter and stammer, especially when they try to get him to talk and say things and ask him questions before everybody. (M: You mean it's better to let him just sort of be there and enjoy it, but not participate?) Yes.

77. SOMETIMES YOU FEEL GUILTY and you know you're guilty, but you try to belittle the sin and minimise it. It's usually the parents' fault‚ certainly not the poor little innocent child! Somehow or another the parents are to blame, or God is dealing with the parents or his teachers. Alfred and Sara are just like part of his parents. You folks are not taking it that seriously like it was your fault or you are to blame, you are just brushing it off like it's nothing.

78. HE MUST LISTEN AT DINNER TIME WITH AMAZEMENT, to think how you can talk so easily about nothing, when he is hardly able to say one word about even his most desperate needs! At least he can retreat into the blessing of silence and go out and swing. He even shuts his eyes and doesn't want to look at people, as if looking means he's going to have to communicate, but if he just shuts his eyes he hopes they will go away and he won't have to talk to them. People are always wanting him to talk to them, say this and say that, and he can't!

79. YOU NEED TO SUFFER! He is really suffering, but it doesn't seem like anybody else is suffering but him. There he sits, suffering because he can't talk‚ and yet nobody seems to even notice!

80. I MEAN IF HE COULDN'T SEE OR COULDN'T WALK OR COULDN'T EAT YOU WOULD GET DESPERATE! But because he just can't talk you think, "Well, it's nothing, it's nothing. It'll go away, if we just close our eyes it will go away."

81. DON'T MAKE HIM TALK, IT'S AGONY FOR HIM TO TRY TO TALK! Don't ask him questions, don't force him to talk, just talk to him. You do the talking, he doesn't want to talk. I can't even call him over the intercom and say, "Davidito, I love you." Because you know what they would do if I did that? You know what they'd do don't you, "Say, 'I love you, Daddy,’ say‚ 'I love you, Daddy'—say it Davidito, say it, say it!"

82. QUIT TRYING TO MAKE HIM TALK! You do it automatically, unconsciously, but it's agony for him to try to talk. You are going to have to show him a lot more sympathy and compassion and understanding, and not push him so hard all the time to speak.

83. YOU WOULDN'T INSIST A BLIND CHILD SEE OR A CRIPPLE WALK! Stop trying to make him talk. Just talk to him and pray with him and get desperate with God about him together, and God will answer prayer! (Amen!—And He did!

84. (DAVIDITO IS NOW COMPLETELY DELIVERED AND SPEAKS FLUENTLY, THANK THE LORD!—Because we finally all really got desperate and really prayed together for his healing! Thank You Jesus! Jesus never fails! Why don't you really pray? It works! God works! Try it! You'll love it! GBY!)