Dear Diary, I recently have read the book of Sarah Williams, called The shaming of the strong. The challenge of a unborn life.

This extraordinary story begins with the happy news of a new member of the Williams family. Sarah's two young daughters are excited, as is her own mother, Jennifer Rees Larcombe. But the happiness is shortlived, as the scan at the hospital reveals that the baby has a condition which will mean severe skeletal deformity. Birth will be fatal. Sarah and husband Paul decide to go to full term and not abort, which shocks the staff at the hospital. So their personal anguish is exacerbated by the fight to maintain the baby's own dignity as a human being. Naming her is important - and they decide on Cerian, which is Welsh for 'loved one'. The book allows us to experience the emotions of Sarah and her family on the difficult journey towards Cerian's birthday, which will also be her deathday. The title, based on 1 Corinthians 1:27 "God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong," throws out a challenge to a society that's poised to pass laws which threaten the very existence of its weaker members. This book is one of the most powerful testimonies to God's grace we have ever published. Its impact will be personal and political - Sarah has already had an impromptu session with the World Health Organization who were eager to hear her perspective. It's not often they encounter a mother who has both this kind of experience and the ability to articulate so many of the issues it raises.

I can not say any different than: this book is very, very, very special.

I've learned something ( and more) that helps me to see and treat myself differently. I 've read it in the same book.

It comes from a lecture of Heather Ward. She has the same view on the self as the apostle Paul ( you can read it in the Bible) and Irenaeus van Lyon had. She teaches that the spirit is placed in the center of being a person, and not the physical body or personality. The self is viewed as the human's ability to be adressed by God. The self is a spirit whose essence and purpose are derived from its relationship with the eternal God. If the self is the ability to be addressed by God, then it follows that when the self grows, that proces is not about growth in size or number or qualities or fame , but on our orientation as a person on God and our receptivity to his spirit. The ego is the enemy of the development of our possibilities. In order for the self to become what it is made for and to reach its fullness as a capacity to know God, we must become increasingly free of our ego and turn more and more to God. One can do that with Gods help alone.

Since man, in his state of separation from God, regards his ego as himself, the experience of self-denial, of abandoning the ego's desires, needs and illusions, is seen as an act of destruction, of disintegration, of loss of everything, what we call our selves and our lives. Whereas when we go through the often deep, painful and lifelong process of the dying of the ego, we find our identity. Again that is impossible without God, as He provides everything we need. He is powerfully, compassioned

and beautifully present in suffering. Even if we don't see Him. We need to reach out.

Hallhannah's Dear Diary