You ask that I pray you might not have to pay these attorney fees, and that the courts would see the abuse laid against you. But consider whether your prayer is shaped more by a desire for earthly vindication than for heavenly gain. Nothing so delights God as when we refuse to return evil for evil. The grasping man, the false accuser, they do themselves the greatest injury, and us the greatest good if we do not defend ourselves by every means. For when you are wronged and give thanks, glorifying God, you gain ten thousand rewards, while the other gathers fire unspeakable.
The one thing needful is to keep your soul free from the poison of malice. To run after compelling evidence, to fix your mind on how the courts will see and judge, this is to be troubled about many things. You are in danger of letting this legal contest become a theater for your own hurt, where the unsubdued passions can wound you more than any financial penalty ever could. The true court is that of the Conscience, and the true Judge is He who is blessed forever, who is never harmed by the insolence of men. If you are innocent, do not fear. But do not turn your prayer into a curse against your opponent, for that would be to become like them, returning abuse for abuse. To be abusive is a disease of the soul, a mark of littleness.
The soldier returning from battle does not boast of the gold he seized, but of his wounds. These years of coercive control, this litigation abuse, bear them with endurance, and they become your title for boldness before God, not your cause for bitterness in an earthly court. Yes, the breast of the law may seem necessary for a time, but God often anoints it with bitter drugs to wean us from it, that we might desire the pure milk of His comfort. Will you, like a child, cling to that which cannot truly nourish, or will you turn to the food that endures?
Pray, then, not that the fees be removed or that you win this argument of evidence, but that you may have charity. For if I give all my goods to feed the poor, or if I conquer in every lawsuit, and have not charity, I am nothing. Pray for your enemy. That is the victory that astonishes the angels, not returning evil for evil, but repaying it with prayer. If you do this, you become like God, who makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good. Your true need is not compelling evidence, but a soul so fixed on the heavenly court that it cannot be pulled down by any earthly loss.