“To Love or Not to Love?” That is the Question . . .

. . . When Empathy leads to Compassion & Forgiveness . . .

Written by

Amazingrace

~ In the Beginning ~

            It all seemed so ugly and no one seemed to really care.  If they weren’t covertly manipulating and controlling their environment there was dead silence.

            Routinely a voice would pray fervently, “Precious God and Heavenly Father, we come before thee to ask that this little baby growing inside my wife be a boy.”

            “I am a girl” ~ "Why won’t I do?"  ~ "Who was he talking to?"  ~ "Why can’t he hear me?"  Maybe she could be the boy he wanted so desperately.  She could at least try.  Tired from all the spent energy and concentrating on the warm liquid nourishment filling her belly the pain slowly subsided until jarring angry thoughts jangled her awake. ~  “What if it isn’t a boy?”  ~ “I don’t want to get pregnant again!”  Everything began to throb intensely.  The walls caved in.  Fear and anger replaced false expectations as she struggled for survival.  And magically, as if she had caused it, the tension released itself but still no answers came.  Only now the forceful flow of warm life, which carried her with it into a world full of pain and pretending.

~ Rebirth ~

Shoulder to shoulder, myriads of people with uplifted glowing faces swung from side to side singing.  The familiar words, “Shine On Me” rang thru open ears, touching on an unexplored place deep in my heart. Two hands crept up past downcast eyes outstretched as if I myself was trying to touch the hem of His garment.

Old familiar pain, pushing and shoving its way to the surface ran ahead of me.  In the past thirty-four years if I carefully swallowed hard I could push every little bit of un-comfortableness into the shadows and forget its existence  . . . but, no more.  It was bigger than me now.  With a guttural moan, the floodgates broke and wave after wave of molten repressed feelings racked the black emptiness and all I could see was . . .

      A picture of a tiny baby girl pulled tightly into a ball with her heart breaking, abandoned, lost and alone.  The pain of watching her became excruciating as I tried to encircle the child with my arms and bring her in towards myself.  Maybe, if I comforted her, my own pain would disappear.  As I cuddled her to myself ~ her sweet face came into view.  She was beautiful.  She was all the things I ever wanted to be.

      And wave after wave of oppression forced new tears to erupt and flow as my heart bled with compassion for a precious child of god I never knew.

     Yet, in the midst of my tears, my Father ~ Mother God held me in loving arms and tenderly said, “I Love you and I am so glad you are here."

And as I was carried back into reality, a voice quietly whispered, “Do what you did before and trust the process.”

~ A New Awakening ~

“Tiny hands touched everything in wonder as a little girl wandered slowly into a wooded glen filled with

flowers and tall grass swaying in a warm breeze.  It wrapped around her like a blanket as it swirled in off a sparkling clear body of water wooing her to itself.  She stood for a few minutes watching her sparkling reflection lovingly as she put on her earth suit and dove in.

            Swimming, floating, giggling, kicking large sprays of water into the air as it fell back splashing.  Almost magnetically the water of everlasting love and amazing grace enveloped her, curiously whispering, Come and join me Gracie, Come and be my precious daughter.

            In a split second the glen changed.  The sun disappeared.  Cold drifts of snow hung from leafless branches transforming the spectrum of beautiful colors into dirty shades of brown.  Warm clear reflective water glazed over as consuming fear, false expectations, and anger jerked her again like an automaton back into the illusion.

            But this time it was different.

A new realization emerged and began to raise itself in newness of life within me and a gentle voice quietly spoke,

Trust me . . .

YOU are so precious to me ~

Feel the ice as you melt into it,

Stand in the Center of my Amazingrace and Mercy ~

Become the water ~ 
filtered with Compassion and Forgiveness

and

Follow Me.

*  *  *

A New & Fresh Awakening . . .

To You God's Precious, Valuable, Important and Worthwhile Child,


Grace and Peace to You from God Our Father Through Christ Jesus our Lord.


Our Father God is calling us to a new and fresh awakening . . . to find and cultivate our own sacred garden.

"Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:

The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,

Hath had elsewhere its setting

And cometh from afar:

Not in entire forgetfulness,

And not in utter nakedness,

But trailing clouds of Glory do we come

From God, who is our home ..."

by

William Wadsworth

"Intimations of Immortality"

Abraham our father left the certainty of the womb ... for the wilderness.  Exiles from the garden.  Setting out, leaving everything behind.  The social milieu.  The preconceptions.  The narrowed field of vision.  The language.  Strangers in a strange land.  No longer expecting relationships, memories, words ~ to mean what they used to mean.  To be, in a word, open.

At the end of childhood, we are called to move out of immaturity into responsibility.  If we do not make this passage, if we attach ourselves to our childhood home as a mollusk does to a sea rock ~ we do not mature.  This much is obvious.  But what is not so obvious is what home means to each of us, when we need to leave it, and how.

Home ~ leaving doesn't necessarily mean you leave anything; sometimes someone leaves you.  Nor does it necessarily mean that anyone actually goes anywhere because after all is said and done, what is left ~ or lost ~ is not a relationship or a place or even a context.  What is left is a consciousness that once felt secure, had categories to fit things into, and knew who it was, where it was going, and why.  And what replaces this sureness is a "not knowing."  An openness.  And something unspeakably, and sometimes almost unbearably, new.

Perhaps the one decision we do not have to make about home-leaving is when to do it.  Home ~ leaving happens.  Dreams come.  Memories present themselves.  As sure as birth contractions come to separate us from the safety of the womb, some hidden timing stirs us, bringing a sense of readiness for the new.  We wake up one morning to find we are no longer able to squeeze into our old identity.  What used to feel secure and comforting now feels life~denying, and suddenly we know it is time to leave home.

"Then Jesus went to work on his disciples. "Anyone who intends to come with me has to let me lead. You're not in the driver's seat; I am. Don't run from suffering; embrace it. Follow me and I'll show you how. Self-help is no help at all. Self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to finding yourself, your true self. What kind of deal is it to get everything you want but lose yourself? What could you ever trade your soul for?"

Matt 16:24 -26

Learning to trust the unfolding of one's own life is awkward, painful work that often leaves one feeling exposed and vulnerable.  And it does not happen overnight.

Something begins to arise in us, a trust that something in our life itself is our teacher.  There is a gnosis, a direct inner knowing, that drives us.  Somehow deep inside us we know, it is not somebody else's tradition now, it is mine, and I have to follow it.  Finally you begin to see their is no person, place or thing you can trust ~ nobody, no authority ~ except the process itself.  Trusting your reality ... the essence itself.

"There has never been the slightest doubt in my mind that the God who started this great work in you would keep at it and bring it to a flourishing finish."

Phil 1:6

"I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope

For hope would be hope for the wrong thing;

wait without love

For love would be love of the wrong thing;

there is yet faith

But the faith and the love and the hope are in the

waiting."

by

T.S. Elliot

The miracle of life waiting in the heart of a seed cannot be proved at once.  The miracle comes with the waiting.  And the waiting takes trust.

This yearning is essential because it comes from the immediacy of our lives, and that is just what we need to find and live from; the penetrating alertness that lets us connect with what is sacred.

Going through a gate or doorway is a metaphor of immense power, perhaps because it reminds us of how we enter this life.  Exiled from the safety of the womb by a hidden timing, sent on a journey through the straits of the birth canal, our passage is fraught with dangers.

Every child who enters the world though believes ~ at least in part ~ that there is only one gate and the getting through it is a matter of life and death.  The message is unequivocal.  There is only one entrance to the sacred, and it is exclusive and exacting.

"Don't look for shortcuts to God. The market is flooded with surefire, easygoing formulas for a successful life that can be practiced in your spare time. Don't fall for that stuff, even though crowds of people do. The way to life—to God!—is vigorous and requires total attention."

Matt 7:13-14

From the mother's perspective, the gate is as wide as it needs to be.  Unlike the fetus whose crowning achievement is successfully negotiating the birth canal, what is at issue for the birth giver is the "willingness to surrender" ~ to be opened by the rhythms of nature flowing through her.  To the extent that she pushes with her contractions and regulates her breathing, she acts in cooperation with an already ongoing process.

Thus two perspectives are potentially available to each one of us: the child's view that the opening to the sacred is singular and narrow, and the mother's perspective that the sacred is manifold and wide.  If only one possibility is presented to us, however, we may never recognize and value the other.  In particular, if we have been taught only the viewpoint of the child, we may deny the experience of the mother.

If we lock away the fearful, painful experiences of our lives, we cut them off from their natural cycling.  They are not washed by our tears.  They are not exposed to the warmth of our heart and the light of our consciousness.  And so these old emotions and memories can not break down to become new sources of new life.

If there is a ethic in the way we come to spiritual maturity, it is one that places value on process, on acceptance of one's whole experience of truth.  Entering the gate to the sacred marks a beginning, an engagement with the divine that does not seek to exclude darkness from the journey but regards it as a mystery to be solved in its own time.  Challenging us to take responsibility for our own progress ~ process.

 "In a word, what I'm saying is, Grow up. You're kingdom subjects. Now live like it. Live out your God-created identity. Live generously and graciously toward others, the way God lives toward you."

Matt 5:48

Our part comes through receptivity, through Grace and Mercy.  We can prepare for this, but how and when it happens is not within our control.

The other part requires choice, an act of conscious intention to embody the sacred in our everyday life.  This means we bring our spiritual insights into every aspect of our lives.  We have to keep stretching to believe and consistently trust the Light inside.

Choice lies at the heart of the matter even if we have not had a direct experience of the divine, once we make a conscious choice to act on what we do know, the process of spiritual awakening begins.

Once we are willing to embody the sacred in our lives, our maturing can proceed.  We can say in effect, "I already know I am an Child of God.  The question is, ~ How can I be an Adult of God?

As Marcia Falk, a poet and professor of religious studies tells us, " ... we've been stuck in a childhood relationship with an parental God figure, but we can't afford to be there anymore.  Far from being arrogant, what this means is taking responsibility, so that we can really, deeply, celebrate divinity.  Which is a better gift to your parent?  ... To fulfill your own life and to care for the lives around you ... or to remain in constant dependency?  The sick parent will prefer the latter, but that is not my notion of divinity; I don't want a sick parent for a God."

It is when we want to become an Adult of God that we look for tools to cultivate our secret garden.  Until this point, we have no need for tools because we are eating spiritual convenience food, the product of someone else's cultivation.  But now we are ready for a spade, a hoe, a rake, some compost and perhaps a knowing friend to help us.

Just as any plot of soil with seeds and sun and water can become a garden if there is a gardener, so can our lives come to spiritual maturity, if we are willing to cultivate them.  To cultivate, in its root form, means to inhabit, to dwell within.  Learning how to live in the dailiness of our own lives while opening continually to the sacred seems to take practice ~ practice in opening, practice in listening, practice in waiting.  Practice in obeying our inner directive, in speaking out when we are so moved to do so, and in accepting responsibility and authority when we are called upon to be bold.  And practice also means celebrating and expressing gratitude and "making a joyful song unto the Lord."  When we enter such practices wholeheartedly, we bring to life another root meaning of cultivate: to worship.

Prayer, the act of communing with the divine, is perhaps the most universal tool we know for cultivating our sacred garden.  There is in us, it seems, some deep human need for connecting with the truth.  And the most direct and accessible way is through prayer.

As the artist Meinrad Craighead said, "Being open to the voice within is how your life happens.  Again and again, it plunges you into the unknown."  What is required, it seems, is the willingness to commit yourself to the whole ~ known, unknown, and the unknowable ~ and trust the path your indwelling truth is showing you.

Too often we wait for the guru, the teacher, the husband or father figure, the wife or mother figure, to approve before we take a step of faith.  Or we never take it at all.  We have to begin now to give ourselves permission to trust the process ~ even if it takes a lifetime.

"In the beginning everything was in relationship,

and in the end everything was in relationship again.

In the meantime,

we live by hope."

by

Jean Lanier

To quote the ecologist and theologian Thomas Berry, "It is as if we are in between stories.  The old story about who we are and how to live doesn't work anymore, and we don't know what the new story is.  Yet, we desperately want to find this new story.  We want to know how to live in a context of relationship and not betray ourselves.  The challenge is to be intimate with another and still remain true to ourselves.  When we deny our innermost knowing, silencing our voice in the hope of pleasing others, we avoid this challenge.  But we also avoid it, if we listen only to ourselves."

In the presence of someone who is real, we take off our veils of illusion.  The other person doesn't have to tear them off.  We just automatically drop them, either that, or we have to get out of their presence.

If you know who you are, and can be true to your own reality ~ you won't be threatened by my reality.  In fact, you'll affirm my difference because you'll know that's just what I need to activate my deepest talents and gifts.  Through searching for and finding our connectedness we gather together what has been lost or forgotten or disowned and welcome it into our lives.

There is a Hebrew word that describes this action ~ tikkun.  It means to heal, to mend what has been broken, to transform.  

In the beginning of the world, the legend which is the source of this word goes, the abundant divine light was held in primeval vessels.  But somehow ~ no one knows how ~ the vessels were shattered, and discord and confusion spread everywhere.  ~ The great task for human beings, the story tells us, is to repair the ancient vessels, to gather together the scattered light, to call home all who have been lost or in exile, to heal the separation and bring peace to our world. 

"At first people refuse to believe that a strange new thing can be done,

then they begin to hope it can be done,

then they see it can be done ~

then it is done

and

all the world wonders why it was not done centuries before."

by

Frances Hodgson Burnett

The Secret Garden

The Savior is spread out among all of us, emerging from each of us as we bring the fruits of the spirit from our own sacred garden into our daily lives.  Our challenge is to go into the great womb where all possibilities dwell and bring the "Skekhinah" ~ God's indwelling presence ~ the Christ child out.

Imagine ~ The gates of thousands upon thousands of sacred gardens are flung open from within, accompanied by laughter that cannot be contained.  And with the laughter comes speech, because in our exuberance we are no longer able to silence ourselves.

Because His Oceans of Unconditional Love and Mercy Compel Me,

Amazingrace

Have you chosen to become God's Child?

To You God's Precious, Valuable, Important and Worthwhile Child,

Grace and Peace to you from God our Father through Christ Jesus our Lord.

The Lord is calling every person ~ every child of God to step through a gate / door; " a circumsized place" in our hearts to a new and deeper place of wisdom, knowledge and understanding.

 "I didn't die. I lived!
 And now I'm telling the world what God did.

 God tested me, he pushed me hard,

 but he didn't hand me over to Death.

 Swing wide the city gates—the righteous gates!

 I'll walk right through and thank God!

 This Temple Gate belongs to God,

 so the victors can enter and praise.

 Thank you for responding to me;

 you've truly become my salvation!"

Psalms 118:17-21

God through his son Jesus wants to enlarge our vision of who we are in relationship to Him.  He wants to sweep away the old and bring in the new.  He wants to resurrect His Grace, Mercy and Glory in us because our spiritual vision is our future in Him.

"I am the Gate. 

Anyone who goes through me will be cared for~

will freely go in and out, and find pasture" ~ 

"I came so they can have real and eternal life,

 more and better life than they ever dreamed of."  

John 10:9,10B

I want to encourage each person to let go of the old and let God's Spirit rain/reign on you anew. 

Choose to allow the "dew" of the Holy Spirit cause a new root to raise up out of the stump of Jesse ~ our heart.  Allow the Spirit of the Lord, like dew, rest upon you and watch as He brings a new anointing of righteousness.

"Let my teaching fall like rain
 and my words descend like dew,
like showers on new grass,
 like abundant rain on tender plants."

       Deut 32:2

As God's children, we now have new parent's, in the form of the Holy Spirit within us.  Parents that will love us purely and never abuse us.  Parents that will always be there for us.

"A green Shoot will sprout from Jesse's stump, 

from his roots a budding Branch.

The life-giving Spirit of God will hover over him,

The Spirit that brings wisdom and understanding,

The Spirit that gives direction and builds strength, 

The Spirit that instills knowledge and Fear-of-God.

Fear-of-God 

will be all his joy and delight."

Isaiah 11:1-3

We are free to let the Lord love us, as we always, even before the beginning of time, deserved to be loved.  We can trust Him.  We can open our hearts and receive His love.  We can be a new creation.

When feelings from our past or fears about our future try to raise their ugly heads and rule our lives ~ we can rebuke them.  We can thank them for sharing & tell them that we have now invited our new internal parent to assist us in finding our way to God's Kingdom.

We are FREE.  To just willingly believe . . . To Trust . . . like a child would.

We are FREE to be all that God created us to be from the beginning of time without sin and without fear.

Choose to act on this fact.

... And the Old Man Became As A Little Child . . .

by

Madeliene L'Engle

He could not sleep.

The tomb was dark, and the stone heavy that sealed it.

He could not sleep for all the innocent blood he had seen shed.

He was an old man.  Too old for fears.

Not yet young enough for sleep.  He waited and watched.

Thrice he had spoken to him who had been sealed

within the tomb, thrice had the old man spoken,

he who was a disciple, but not one of the twelve,

older, gentler in all ways,

and tired, worn with time and experience and the shedding of blood.

He came from Capernaum

and after that his son

who touched the edge of death

was drawn back from the pit

and made whole,

the old man returned to Jesus and said,

"O thou, who hast today been the consolation of my household,

wast also its desolation.

Because of you my first born son died

in that great shedding of innocent blood.

Nevertheless, I believe

though I know not what

or how or why

for it has not been revealed to me,

I only know that one manchild was slain

and one made to live."

And the second time he spoke

when the Lord kept the children beside him

and suffered them not to be taken away:

"These are the ones left us,

but where, Lord, is the kingdom of heaven?

Where, Lord, are the others?

What of them? What of them?

And he wept.

And the third time he spoke

when the Lord turned to Jerusalem

and laughter turned to steel

and he moved gravely

towards the hour that was prepared

and the bitterness of the cup:

then the old man said,

"All your years you have lived

under the burden of their blood.

Their life was the price of yours.

Have you borne the knowledge and the cost?

During those times

when you have gone silent in the midst of laughter

have you remembered all the innocence

slaughtered that you might be with us now?

When you have gone up into the mountain apart to pray,

have you remembered that their lives were cut down

for your life, and so ours?

Rachel's screams still shatter the silence

and I cannot sleep at night for remembering

Do you ever forget your children that sleep?

When will you bring them out of the sides of the earth

and show mercy unto them?

I cannot sleep.

But because I have already tasted of the cup

I cannot turn from you now.

I, who live, praise you.

Can those who have gone before you into the pit

celebrate you or hope for your truth?

Tell me, tell me ~ For I am an old man

and lost in the dark clouds of ignorance.

Nevertheless, Blessed is he

who thou has chosen and taken, O Lord."

He did not speak again.

But he was there when the rocks were rent,

the veil of the temple torn in twain,

the sun blackened by clouds,

the earth quaked with darkness,

the sky was white and utterly empty.

The city gasped with loss.

Then, out of the silence,

the Lord went

bearing the marks of nails & spear

moving swiftly through the darkness

into the yawning night of the pit.

There he sought first not as one supposed

For Moses or Elias

but for the children

who had been waiting for him.

So, seeking, he was met

by three Holy Children

the Young Men

burning bright

transforming the fire into dew as they cried:

"Blessed art thou, O Lord God forevermore."

And all the children came running

and offering to him their blood

and singing: "With sevenfold heat

did the Chaldean tyrant in his rage

cause the furnace to be heated

for the Godly ones

who wiped our blood like tears

when we were thrust here

lost and unknowing.

The Holy Three

waited here to receive us

and to teach us to sing your coming

forasmuch as thou art pitiful

So they held his hand

and gave him their kisses and their blood

and, laughing, led him by the dragon

who could not bear their innocence

and thrashed with his tail

so that the pit trembled with rage.

But even his roaring could not drown out their song:

"For unto Thee are due all glory, honor, and worship,

with the Father and the Holy Spirit, now, and ever,

and unto the ages of ages, Amen."

And the Holy children were round about him,

The Holy Innocence and the Holy Three.

They walked through the darkness of the fiery furnace

and the dragon could see their brightness,

yea, he saw four walkers loose

walking in the midst of the fire and having no hurt

and the form of the fourth was like the Son of God.

And He saw the Son of God move through hell

and he heard the Holy Children sing:

"Meet is it that we should magnify thee,

the life-giver

who has stretched out thy hands on the cross

and hast shattered the dominion of the enemy.

Blessed are thou, O Lord God, forevermore.

O Jesus, God and Savior,

who did take upon thee Adam's sin

and did taste of death

(the cup was bitter)

thou hast come again to Adam

O compassionate one

for thou only art good

and lovest mankind,

Blessed art thou, O Lord God, forevermore."

So hell has shriven

while the holy children, singing

transformed the flames to dew,

and the gates of heaven opened.

Then, by the empty tomb,

the old man slept.

Most important, remember . . . it is always ok to be exactly who you are.

"God loves people who don't know how to be anyone but themselves; 

that is why he created children.  

And that's why He left a little child in each of us."  ~ 

(excerpt from . . . Stephen Farmer, 1989; Breaking the cycle; Our Generations Commission.)

"Because a loveless world," said Jesus, "is a sightless world. 

If anyone loves me, he will carefully keep my word and my Father will love him ~

we'll move right into the neighborhood!  

John 14:23 (The Message)

Aha! ~ by jove I think I've got it ~ 
It is all about our being / becoming ~ WILLING ~ 

Yes, that is ALL God asks of us ~ to become willing to obey His teaching ~ He asks us to become as a child and willingly trust that what he said / says is true - because as Jesus says, 

"He who does not love me will not obey my teaching. 

The message you are hearing isn't mine. 
It's the message of the Father who sent me."  

John 14:24 (The Message)



"Listen to me, family of Jacob,
everyone that's left of the family of Israel.~ (that is You and Me)
I've been carrying you on my back
from the day you were born,
And I'll keep on carrying you when you're old.
I'll be there, bearing you when you're old and gray.
I've done it and will keep on doing it,
carrying you on my back, saving you."
Isaiah 46:3-4 (The Message)

Amen and Amen!

Blessings upon each and everyone of you,

Because His Unconditional Love and Mercy compel me,

Amazingrace

I Have A Dream . . . A Vision . . . An Idea Whose Time Has Come

Where "Show Me Thy Glory ~ In The Struggle"  all started . . .

As I was meditating on God's Word the morning of April 21, 1989 and thinking about what God's call / purpose on my life is / was ~ I caught the exciting dynamism of Paul's vision . . . and what it meant to and for me.

^"I want you to know how glad I am that it's me sitting here in this jail and not you. There's a lot of suffering to be entered into in this world—the kind of suffering Christ takes on. I welcome the chance to take my share in the church's part of that suffering. When I became a servant in this church, I experienced this suffering as a sheer gift, God's way of helping me serve you, laying out the whole truth."

^"This mystery has been kept in the dark for a long time, but now it's out in the open. God wanted everyone, not just Jews, to know this rich and glorious secret inside and out, regardless of their background, regardless of their religious standing. The mystery in a nutshell is just this: Christ is in you, so therefore you can look forward to sharing in God's glory. It's that simple. That is the substance of our Message. We preach Christ, warning people not to add to the Message. We teach in a spirit of profound common sense so that we can bring each person to maturity. To be mature is to be basic. Christ! No more, no less. That's what I'm working so hard at day after day, year after year, doing my best with the energy God so generously gives me." 

Col 1:24-29

My vision ~ dream ~ purpose is to create, facilitate and practice an ecclesia such as this ~ where each one of us may gently and lovingly learn how to ~ "Become like Christ" ~ called, " Show Me Thy Glory . . . In The Struggle.


The goal of this ecclesia (Blog) is not to inform minds but to change lives, not merely to answer intellectual questions but to perform loving acts.  The apostle Paul sums it up, . . .

 "The whole point of what we're urging is simply love~
love uncontaminated by self-interest and counterfeit faith, 
a life open to God." 

 I Timothy 1:5

This Love is the summary of Grace and Mercy ~ 

"That you love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer 
and muscle and intelligence—
and that you love your neighbor as well as you do yourself." 
Luke10:27

I want to be in the business of assisting people learn how to freely choose Grace, Mercy and Peace in the nitty gritty of their everyday life because ~ Faith with Paticipation is ALIVE . . . in Christ.


On a mountain top, overlooking a beautiful valley & a lake below ~ I see a place of spirtual, emotional and physical healing where creative idea's and inspiration come to each one of us each day on how to be with the broken hearted in such a way that is not controlling or manipulative and will assist each person to experience their own inner healing and transformation within the process and reality of life itself.


I see God's Grace and Mercy reaching out through a team effort, assisting and discipling people to experience first hand what I call ... ownership of ~ Unconditional Love, Mercy and Amazingrace.


This Love ("Grace") is the willingness to accept ourself and others for who we / they are and who we / they are not.


I see all of us becoming like little children, being transparent mirrors ready and willing to mature thru God's Word . . .


God's word should be more to us than a comforting afterthought. It is both profound and practical. It is able to open our understanding to the deepest needs of the human heart and direct our steps out of darkness of shame, our defenses, abandonment issues, pretenses, pain. loss and sin ~ to the light of a Christ (Grace) centered, Spirit empowered life.


In the first public message of his ministry, Jesus said, He came to heal not only the physically ill, but "those who are downtrodden, bruised, crushed and broken down by calamity." ~ Clearly this was his public announcement of God's commission to him ~ his task is that inner healing which alone can release the heart from emotional shadows ~ the trauma that keeps us bound to our past calamities.


When we are freed from tyrannies of repressed or long forgotten memories ~ we realise that creative thought is more powerful than negative thought ~ because the creative flows from, into and with this Christ~destined design of the universe.


We then realise that God "can" use all of our past to bring us to an oasis and make us into a tree of sweetness unto Him . . .


We now have available to us a means of touching and transforming troubled hearts. Through inner healing, the lonely can find release from their imprisonment. The depressed can find light to dispel impenetrable darkness. Those who feel unloved and rejected can find acceptance and the ability to give and receive this crowning emotion of love. The torment of guilt which seems indelible can be washed away. 


 Until we have experienced this torment ~ or until we have been freed from it ~ we cannot appreciate on our own heart level the saying of Paul ~ "the whole creation groans as if it is in the pangs of childbirth."

Each one of us can ~ 

"Give up all that inferior stuff so we can know Christ personally, 
experience his resurrection power, 
be a partner in his suffering, 
and go all the way with him to death itself." 

Phil 3:10-11

"We (each one of us) carry this precious message around ~ 
in the unadorned clay pots of our ordinary lives."      

2 Cor 4:7  

. . . It is hidden within each one of us!


And, if we choose to allow God the freedom to become the arc of the covenant ~ the Holy Spirit in our heart ~ we will discover that ~ this precious message is addressed to each one of us personally ~ what each of our, vision ~ dream ~ purpose ~ is . . .

"Be assured that from the first day we heard of you, we haven't stopped praying for you, asking God to give you wise minds and spirits attuned to his will, and so acquire a thorough understanding of the ways in which God works. We pray that you'll live well for the Master, making him proud of you as you work hard in his orchard. As you learn more and more how God works, you will learn how to do your work. We pray that you'll have the strength to stick it out over the long haul—not the grim strength of gritting your teeth but the glory-strength God gives. It is strength that endures the unendurable and spills over into joy, thanking the Father who makes us strong enough to take part in everything bright and beautiful that he has for us." 

Col 1:9-12

I see a place where we can feel secure while we work, play and learn ~ together ~ how to serve each other by confronting our incompleteness as we become whole.

"We will all get where we are going; We will all succeed ~ 
"Strength! Courage! 
Don't be timid; don't get discouraged. 
God, your God, is with you every step you take." 

Joshua 1:9

"God, your God, 
will cut away the thick calluses on your heart and your children's hearts, 
freeing you to love God, your God, 
with your whole heart and soul and live, 
really live. " 

Deut 30:6

'The land on which your feet have walked will be your inheritance, 
you and your children's, forever.' 

Joshua 14:9

"Don't push these children away. 
Don't ever get between them and me. 
These children are at the very center of life in the kingdom. 
Mark this: Unless you accept God's kingdom in the simplicity of a child, you'll never get in." Then, gathering the children up in his arms, he laid his hands of blessing on them. "

 Mark 10:13-14

"I'm telling you, once and for all, that unless you return to square one and start over 
like children, you're not even going to get a look at the kingdom, let alone get in. 
Whoever becomes simple and elemental again, like this child, 
will rank high in God's kingdom. 
What's more, when you receive the childlike on my account, 
it's the same as receiving me." 

Matt 18:3-5

"If you stick with this, living out what I tell you, 
you are my disciples for sure. 
Then you will experience for yourselves the truth, and the truth will free you." 

John 8:32

"Anyone on God's side listens to God's words." 

John 8:47

"When I was an infant at my mother's breast, I gurgled and cooed like any infant. 
When I grew up, I left those infant ways for good.  
"We don't yet see things clearly. We're squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. 
But it won't be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! 
We'll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, 
knowing him directly just as he knows us!"

 I Cor 13:11-12

"God knew what he was doing from the very beginning. 
He decided from the outset to shape the lives of those who love him along the same lines as the life of his Son.  The Son stands first in the line of humanity he restored. We see the original and intended shape of our lives there in him.  After God made that decision of what his children should be like, he followed it up by calling people by name. After he called them by name, he set them on a solid basis with himself.  And then, after getting them established, he stayed with them to the end, gloriously completing what he had begun." 

Romans 8:29-30

"Whenever, though, they turn to face God as Moses did, 
God removes the veil and there they are—face-to-face!  
They suddenly recognize that God is a living, personal presence, not a piece of chiseled stone. And when God is personally present, a living Spirit, that old, constricting legislation is recognized as obsolete. We're free of it! All of us! Nothing between us and God, our faces shining with the brightness of his face. And so we are transfigured much like the Messiah, our lives gradually becoming brighter and more beautiful as God enters our lives and we become like him." 

2 Cor 3:16-18

"By entering through faith into what God has always wanted to do for us—set us right with him, make us fit for him—we have it all together with God because of our Master Jesus. And that's not all: We throw open our doors to God and discover at the same moment that he has already thrown open his door to us. We find ourselves standing where we always hoped we might stand—out in the wide open spaces of God's grace and glory, standing tall and shouting our praise."

"There's more to come: We continue to shout our praise even when we're hemmed in with troubles, because we know how troubles can develop passionate patience in us, and how that patience in turn forges the tempered steel of virtue, keeping us alert for whatever God will do next. In alert expectancy such as this, we're never left feeling shortchanged. Quite the contrary—we can't round up enough containers to hold everything God generously pours into our lives through the Holy Spirit!" 

Romans 2:1-5

The underlying threads I see woven thru this vision are Unconditional Grace, Mercy and Love.

"God gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed (by sin, shame, defenses, abandonment issues, or pretenses); 
by believing in him, 
anyone can have a whole and lasting life." 

John 3:16

Jesus, is a friend that will stick closer to you than your own family. He accepts you and me unconditionally for who we are and who we are not. By His example, we are challenged to transform ourself and our relationships by patterning all of our friendships and acquaintances after the one we were given as a gift.


To receive this gift ~ God asks only one thing from us . . . Humility ~


God is asking his people, 
Are you "willing" to look into your heart and share it with me? ~ 
Because, (one by one) ~ their is only one way to heal a nation  . . . 

"If my God-defined people, respond by humbling themselves, praying, 
seeking my presence, and turning their backs on their wicked lives, 
I'll be there ready for you: 
I'll listen from heaven, forgive their (your) sins, and restore their (your) land to health." 

 2 Chron 7:14

The question is . . . 
Are you "willing" to let go of anything that keeps you from being in right relationship with your Father God? 
Are you "willing" to step out of your comfort zone? 
Are you "willing" to humbly follow Jesus example and allow your Father God to transform you into being this kind of friend?


My answer is, wholeheartedly, Yes!


However ~ My next question is ~ What will your answer be?


I welcome YOU to follow along while God begins to "Show" each one of us "His Glory . . . In the Struggle" ... of what we call our life ... and then ~ if you so desire ~ we  all can continue to peruse, observe and  interact ~ by prayerfully sharing our stories together here ~ as He begins to uncover within you and me ~ His Mercy and Grace ~ we become ~ FREE ~ to Triumph over ~ our own ~ Judgement.


Because His Unconditional Love compels me,


I look forward to seeing you on the mountain top ~


Oceans of  ~


Amazingrace