Tag: depression

Leaving Our Graves Behind

On By Charis PsalloIn Photography5 Comments

Clarence in cutter 2

They left the graves of their two precious children behind when they abandoned the farm. It was time. The Depression years had lasted long enough.

I thought of my grandparents yesterday and so wished they could have been with us. Our granddaughter, (their great great-granddaughter) was baptized. On her own she sought out the youth pastor at her church and told him about her encounter with the living Jesus. He showed up as powerful and deeply intense feelings and even though she is not yet twelve-years old she knew that she knew that he was speaking to her and asking her to make a public declaration of her faith. The symbolism of being buried with Christ and rising to new life in him was made even stronger by the fact that since this group doesn’t have a built-in baptismal tank they purchased a portable tub originally designed as a birthing tub. Perfect.

One of the triggers that brought up the memory of my grandparents was being greeted by familiar friends from my childhood when we arrived at the church. They just happened to retire in the same town where our son is now a pastor. “I can’t believe Aunt Annie’s grandson is our pastor!” “Matt’s” wife said with tears in her eyes when we first ran into them. “Matt” was the son of my grandmother’s life-long best friend, who we called Little Mary, and her husband Spencer -with whom my grandfather shared an amazing experience I only heard about a few years ago.

My grandparents’ baby girl died when she was only a few days old. Grandma never knew why. The crops had failed again that year and even if they could have scrounged up the money for a doctor he may not have been able to make it through the spring blizzard or been able to help when he got there. She and her husband were devastated, but went back to work ploughing, and planting and trying to raise their three- and five-year old sons. Then only a few months later their youngest boy died.

“Quinsy. That’s why we give you medicine for tonsillitis now,” she told me when I was a girl. “We didn’t have any back then. It was such a  hard year. Your daddy was left  all alone without his sister and brother and played “funeral” by burying pretend children in matchboxes in the yard and then digging them back up again. I cried a lot, but your grandfather was angry a lot. Then Jesus came into our lives.”

My grandfather, Clarence, always used words sparingly. He wasn’t miserly with his words, he just didn’t have many. His thoughts came in the form of deeply intense feelings. It was my Dad who told me the story of how Grandpa met Jesus.

“There was this nurse. Nurse Conners,”  Dad said. “She wanted to be a missionary overseas, but the missions board rejected her because they said she was too small and too sickly and just a woman, so she decided instead, on her own, to go out west and be a missionary to the settlers on the prairie. She rode around the district with her horse and cutter in weather conditions that were tougher than in any tropical country. She looked after the folks and taught them about Jesus and even started a kind of training school where she taught young men how to preach. Some of these young preachers came around to the nearby village and held some old-fashioned tent meetings. Your Grandma walked down the aisle that first night to find out more about this Jesus and she never looked back. Your grandfather went to the meeting with her but he wanted none of it. He was an angry, bitter man who had enough of religion. His mother was a religious woman in the Temperance League movement and she had already attempted to literally beat it into him.

He was in the barn late at night tending the horses when a bright light appeared behind him. He could feel something was happening before he had the nerve to turn around. When he finally did he saw Jesus standing there in the middle of the light.”

“‘Why are you fighting me?’ He asked. ‘Why are you kicking against the pricks?’” (This is close to the phrase, in King James English, that Jesus spoke when He appeared to Saul, a man who hated Christians so much he led a movement to imprison and kill them. One modern translation puts it this way: “It’s hard for you to fight your own conscience.”)

My grandfather turned his life over to Christ that night. If that experience wasn’t amazing enough, when they went to the meetings in the village the next evening he learned his good friend, Spencer, had exactly the same experience at the same time in his barn a few miles away. The transformation of two families began that night.

A few years later Grandma and Grandpa left  their children’s graves and their failed lives as farmers behind to move to the city where they bought a big old boarding house that became a place of refuge for many folks at low points in their lives.

The old boarding house before they replaced it with a mall.
The old boarding house before they replaced it with a mall.

So yesterday, there I sat in the same room as Spencer’s son listening to Clarence’s great great-granddaughter talk about her encounter with the living Christ and wanting to follow him for the rest of her life. When she stepped out of that birthing tub she symbolically left her grave behind to be raised up with Christ.

If that wasn’t amazingly joyful enough Jesus encountered me there as well, as he often does, through music. This is a church that praises God with contemporary music. I loved hearing Kim Walker’s song, “How He Loves”. It was perfect for the occasion. But then the worship leaders started singing a song I haven’t heard in years. What? It seemed like a totally unlikely song to sing in a modern sophisticated church setting. It was an old Hank Williams song I heard crackling out of my grandparents’ record player. “Praise the Lord, I saw the Light.”

Like my grandfather -and now my granddaughter I felt His presence before I had words for the experience. The connection to memories of Grandma and Grandpa hit me deeply and I cried and cried.

I had said earlier, “I wish my grandparents could see this.”

I think the song was telling me they did. Thank you, Lord! What a gift!

I have a good inheritance. God is good, so very, very, very good.

 

The Agony of Defeat

On By Charis PsalloIn Photography17 Comments

Crossing

Sometimes the Kingdom of God seems so near, and sometimes it seems so far.

In the past few weeks four people I have been praying for have died. Two died of cancer. Two died of depression. A fifth person, an elderly friend, died suddenly of a stroke this week as well.

I have seen miraculous healing with my own eyes – things I never thought I would see in my lifetime. I have seen people I know walk out of hospitals after receiving a diagnosis of “hopeless.” I have seen babies diagnosed in the womb with “anomalies incompatible with life” alive and well, smiling in their mothers’ arms and someone who once had stage four treatment-resistant cancer pronounced cancer-free.

Then there are weeks like this when it appears the enemy has not been defeated. Three of these people who died left young children behind. The fourth left a family of older children who still need a mother’s advice. As the child of a motherless child, and as a sensitive kid who grew up carrying grief for a grandmother she never knew, I know that kind of pain, the pain that goes on and on even to successive generations. I used to sing the spiritual, “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child” as if it came out of my own sorrow.

Two of these young women died of cancer. I hate cancer and I join with the millions seeking a cure. I HATE cancer.

Two of these people died of depression. Those numbers are consistent with my experience of people who die young. Some die from cancer or rare illness, some from accidents, but a shocking number have obituaries that say, “died suddenly.” Can we get past the stigma and admit that depression is as hellish as cancer or heart disease or injury caused by drunk driver? Can we admit that depression victims often fight and suffer for months or years too? Can we admit that far too many people die from it?

I’ve had very painful illnesses in my life. I stopped counting how many kidney stones (closing in on top spot on the pain scale) I birthed when the number passed 25 many years ago -and there have been other unpleasant afflictions that seemed hopeless at the time too, but nothing that was so relentlessly painful that I wanted to die just to escape the agony  -except for depression. I understand why asking for help can be so difficult. Suicide is sometimes a form of self-administered euthanasia (although some victims kill themselves because they have been deceived by the demonic lie that their families will be better off without them). Don’t get me wrong. I believe with every fiber of my being that taking your own life is not God’s plan, removes permanently any option for recovery, and inflicts inordinate pain on loved ones, but I do understand why people do it.

When I told friends I was having tests done because doctors suspected cancer they gushed sympathy and gathered around to pray. When I was young and told people (very few) that I was seriously depressed they said, “Oh, dear, you mustn’t feel that way,” “Keep it to yourself. Don’t bring everybody down,” “You need to work on that attitude,” or “Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone.” I learned early on that I was on my own with this shameful illness.

I have no problem with using both medical treatments and prayer. I deeply admire those in whom God has placed the ability and desire to learn how the body works, and to pursue methods of restoring health. I have an equal admiration for those who realize God, who made our bodies, is behind every healing, “explained” or not, and who pursue Him for more than we understand. It’s time we pursued more in the area of healing mental illness.

My “suspicious growth” was benign, thank God. After years of medication and hospitalizations (for which I am grateful because although it never healed me, medical treatment kept me alive) God healed me of depression. I thank Him from the bottom of my heart. I am so utterly grateful!! Freedom from mental illness is something I will never take for granted. I HATE depression. I really, really HATE it. I can’t bear to see gentle folk in its grip.

On days like this when other people die of diseases I escaped I hate those diseases even more. On days like this I want to ask why me and not them — but why is seldom a useful question. What and how are the start of better questions.

We say all sorts of things to comfort ourselves in times like this, but deep down a sense of outrage wells up. I don’t care how old you are. (I attended the funeral of the friend in her 80’s this week as well and saw the grief in family who still appreciated her attention.) Death is wrong, fundamentally wrong! Wrong! Wrong! Wrong!

Death is never dignified. We are created for relationship, not to be cut off from those we love. We are created to be eternal beings in love and in connection with our Creator. The agony of grief is another proof to me that there must be more than this.

The thief has come to steal, kill, and destroy. Jesus came that we might have life -abundant life, and that we might live in love and fellowship with God and with others. On days like this I can choose to pull the blanket of despair over myself and learn to lower my expectations or I can cry out to Jesus Christ , the Lover of my soul. How long, oh Lord, how long?

I choose Jesus Christ.

Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Spiritual Depression: Clouds of Doubt or Unbelief?

On By Charis PsalloIn Mountains, Photography, Sky, Trees and forests, Water6 Comments
Clouds
Clouds

Indeed I can put it, finally, like this; the ultimate cause of all spiritual depression is unbelief, for if it were not for unbelief even the devil could do nothing. It is because we listen to the devil instead of listening to God that we go down before him and fall before his attacks.   -Martyn Lloyd-Jones

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Christ never failed to distinguish between doubt and unbelief. Doubt is can’t believe. Unbelief is won’t believe. Doubt is honesty. Unbelief is obstinacy. Doubt is looking for light. Unbelief is content with darkness.   -Henry Drummond

There are those who insist it is a very bad thing to question God. To them “why?” is a rude question. That depends, I believe, on whether it is an honest search, in faith, for His meaning, or whether it is the challenge of unbelief and rebellion.   -Elizabeth Elliot

Ignorance asks for understanding. Unbelief asks for proof.   -Bill Johnson

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Unbelief is actually perverted faith, for it puts its trust, not in the living God, but in dying men.  -A.W. Tozer

There is no worse screen to block out the Spirit than confidence in our own intelligence.   -John Calvin

All unbelief is the belief of a lie.  -Horatius Bonar

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Jesus said to him, “Thomas, because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” (John 20:29 )

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And I would write 500 blogs

On By Charis PsalloIn Art, Just folks, Man made, Mountains, Photography, Poetry, Sky16 Comments
The Desk
The Station Master’s Desk

Wow! The little counter over on the left says this is my 500th blog entry. And I was worried I would have nothing to say after the first month.

I never knew, when I dared to overcome my technophobia to find an outlet for my poems, paintings, photos and musings, that God would have so much more to teach me than overcoming fear of computerese. I sometimes questioned the wisdom of writing about events of this annus horibilis before there was any evidence of it becoming annus mirabilis. And who knew it was going to be an annus horibilis anyway?

What if things don’t work out? What if I die of ovarian cancer? What if the depression comes back? What if our miracle grandbaby doesn’t make it to term? What if our son-in-love dies of necrotizing fasciitis? What if our son and his family never recover losses from the flood? Maybe I should wait before I write about them, to make sure God answers our prayers.

Then it occurred to me that I am not in charge of God’s P.R.. This is what it is like to walk in faith, not knowing how the cliff-hanger ends. (And honestly I did not make this stuff up. It has been a horrible time -and a miraculous time.) I have also noted that my anxious questions starting with “what if” seldom come in God’s tender voice.

So to celebrate 500 posts I have chosen not the five most popular blogs but five with the most meaning to me -some of them written in blood and some of them written in tears of joy. Five, because the number 5 is symbolic of grace, and Charis, my chosen name, means grace in Koine Greek, the language of the New Testament. (Psallo means song, and since I have lived a life full of songs it seemed appropriate.)

Right off the bat I’m going to cheat on my own rules because these two posts are part of one story that cannot be separated (and I can do that -my blog, my rules, and my bending of rules) This is about how God took something utterly horrible and turned it into something miraculously wonderful. These were written during the time many excellent doctors expected our son-in-love to die from multiple overwhelming complications after contracting an extremely severe case of flesh-eating disease. He has been restored to full health and the story is just too too too good not to tell over and over -so it goes first. Love is Louder and Love is Louder part II

Love is Louder

Love is Louder part II

For the second I am going back into history. After spending decades drowning in soul-crushing depressive mental illness, I was raised up out of the depths. Bluer than Blue

Bluer than Blue

One of the hardest parts in co-operating with Jesus’ healing work and recovering from the prison of the past is the struggle with forgiveness. Letting Go is a poem about stepping away from practised anger and entrenched bitterness.

Letting Go

Red Button, Yellow Button is one of my favourites because the older I get the more I appreciate the insightful wisdom of children before we educate it out of them.

Red Button, Yellow Button

Finally, Night Vision, because Jesus Christ is the Lover of my soul and my greatest desire is to know him and live in his presence.

Night Vision

So now the beautiful, sorrowful, joyful, frustrating, exhilarating journey continues.

Trail, acrylic on canvas
Trail, acrylic on canvas

To borrow from The Proclaimers I would like to make a proclamation of my own:

But I would write 500 blogs

And I would write 500 more

Just to be the one who wrote 1000 blogs

To tell you God is good.

And yes, He will restore.

Yet in Thy Dark Streets: The Sorrow of Christmas

On By Charis PsalloIn Photography, Winter25 Comments
Frosty night, red light
Frosty night, red light

I was very young, three, maybe four years old, but I remember what it feels like to be in a car driving over somebody. I remember the frost making dramatic patterns of the red flashing lights on the back window of the Olds. I remember Daddy taking the blanket wrapped around my thin stockinged  legs to cover the man up. I remember the anxious adult voices in the street.

“…right out in front of me. I couldn’t stop. The ice…”

I remember Mommy’s voice making puffs of clouds in the cold night air as she held my little brother and I down in the back seat.

I remember the hushed voices in the kitchen saying, “We can’t let this spoil the children’s Christmas.”

I remember Grandma taking us into the bedroom and telling us that Santie Claus was on the roof. Could we hear him?

I asked her where the dead man was now.

She said Rudolph’s nose was glowing extra brightly when he learned this was my house.

I asked her if my Daddy was in trouble for driving over him.

She said she could hear Santie Claus eating the milk and cookies we put out for him in the living room.

Then someone opened our door and we were ushered into a room where presents now spilled out from under the tinselled tree.

Mommy said, “Oh look what Santa brought you!

Her eyes were red.

I was very young, three, maybe four years old, but I knew it was my job not to spoil the grown-ups’ Christmas. I squealed with feigned glee and hugged the doll sitting in front of the tree. It was an Oscar performance. Mommy smiled.

Daddy said, “Here, Honey. Open this one.”

His hands were still shaking.

I wondered if the man was with grown-up Jesus in heaven now -and if Jesus liked my blanket too.

Years later, when my children were scattered around the world and I was procrastinating putting up a tree, I admitted out loud that I hated Christmas. What right did merriness and hustle and bustle have to barge in and try to hide pain and sorrow behind sparkly red skirts as if it didn’t exist? Who gave this season permission to trump reality?

I know I was not the only one. There is something about the images of happy harmonious families that makes the first Christmas with an empty chair at the table excruciatingly harder to bear.

There is something about an entire tray of shortbread cookies on a table for one that makes loneliness stab deeper.

There is something about mistletoe and perfume commercials  that makes unchosen celibacy crave illegitimate intimacy even more.

There is something about joyful carols in a church full of contented faithful that makes the struggle to believe feel like being cast into outer darkness.

There is a dark side to the Christmas story that doesn’t make it to the ceramic nativity scenes. We bring in the Wise Men, with their odd assortment of gifts, ahead of schedule for the sake of convenient story-telling, but we skip over the part where a jealous despot sent men to kill all the innocent two-year old boys and babies in the sweetly lying, still little town of Bethlehem –men who had to do his despicable dirty work, and then probably went home to a life-time of post-traumatic stress disorder from what their eyes and ears could not block out in the wine-stupoured nights to follow.

Then there was baby Jesus’ adopted father, Joseph, awoken by an angel with an urgent warning to get up and run to a country where he would be a refugee, confused by language and custom, doubly rejected for something that was not his fault, yet responsible for a family. He probably heard reports of the grief their presence had caused the parents in Bethlehem. Perhaps he had survivor’s guilt as well.

He was born into a dark place, and a dark time, this child. In the fullness of time, the Bible says. The angelic promises relayed by terrified farm hands, and the words spoken by two wrinkled old prophets in the temple had to feed this little family’s hopes for a long time. Joseph died before ever seeing what the boy was to become, yet he dared to bear his wife’s shame by marrying a pregnant woman; he dared to get up and follow the instructions from a mere dream to protect a child that wasn’t even his. He dared to obey. He dared to hope.

There was no rockin’ around a holly jolly Christmas tree with lights strung across the market place and the smell of turkey and stuffing wafting out of windows in that town. The story the Bible tells looks despair and pain right in the face. There is no denial of feelings here. And yet, and yet…

There is hope.

The sorrow of Christmas is also the blessing of Christmas, because this pain is why He came. Jesus said he came to destroy the works of the devil. Jesus said he came that we might have life, and have it abundantly.

There is hope in the midst of darkness.

IMG_8160 dawn Tiberius street ch

“Yet in thy dark streets shineth the everlasting light…”

 

 

 

 

Bluer than Blue

On By Charis PsalloIn Art, Mountains, Photography, Water7 Comments

Kootenay Lake

Bluer than Blue

The artist leading the workshop in the desert city looked at my paintings and asked, perhaps facetiously, “You use a lot of blue. Are you depressed?”

I looked around at the other participants’ work mostly done in earth tones –beiges, browns, greys –with occasional splashes of red and yellow. Desert colours.

“No,” I said, “Not anymore. I just come from a place that is mostly blue.”

When I arrived home in the Rocky Mountains of Canada a few months later, deep lavender blue skies, shifting azure-blue lakes, paler and paler layers of blue mountains and sparkling blue snow shadows seemed even bluer than the paintings.

Bluer than blue.

I come from a place that is mostly blue.

To some blue communicates serenity. To some blue communicates depression. I come from a place that was mostly depression.

A while ago I was told in a dream, “Look to the area of your greatest failure, for therein lies your greatest success.”

There was that night.

That night I bowed on a stage before a large audience jumping up to shout “Brava” and throw flowers. Most of them didn’t know that underneath a gorgeous costume I was balancing on one leg the whole time. I had broken the other one only a few days before.

Then there was that night.

That night, I cowered in a locked ward where a silhouetted person behind a flashlight peered in my room every fifteen minutes to make sure I was still alive.

That night on the stage, the night of  “my greatest success,” was actually my greatest failure. That was the night when I identified myself as a strong-willed, disciplined overcomer. That’s when I was foolish enough to think that if I just worked hard enough I could earn love, respect, and adulation.

The night on the ward, the night of  “my greatest failure,” was actually the night of my greatest success. That was the night when I admitted it took more courage to live than to die. I was fresh out of courage. That was the night when my tank hit empty, when I had no will power, no self-discipline, no hope. That was the night when grace pulled me deep down into those depths of blue and began to show me that freedom means nothing left to lose. Freedom means letting go of self-sufficiency, self-righteousness, and self-promotion. That was the night when Jesus Christ took me by the hand and lifted me up toward the light. Drowning in emptiness and being lifted up to a new life of hope was a kind of baptism.

It took a while to get on my feet. I had a lot of forgiving to do. Forgiving myself was the hardest test of wrestling pride, reputation, and the albatross of potential to the ground. I still have to remember to punch it in the beak regularly.

Blue means freedom, revelation, and serenity now. I understand better what Paul meant when he wrote:

Yet every advantage that I had gained I considered lost for Christ’s sake. Yes, and I look upon everything as loss compared with the overwhelming gain of knowing Jesus Christ my Lord. For his sake I did in actual fact suffer the loss of everything, but I considered it useless rubbish compared with being able to win Christ. For now my place is in him, and I am not dependent upon any of the self-achieved righteousness of the Law. God has given me that genuine righteousness which comes from faith in Christ. How changed are my ambitions! Now I long to know Christ and the power shown by his resurrection: now I long to share his sufferings, even to die as he died, so that I may perhaps attain as he did, the resurrection from the dead.

Yet, my brothers, I do not consider myself to have “arrived”, spiritually, nor do I consider myself already perfect. But I keep going on, grasping ever more firmly that purpose for which Christ grasped me. My brothers, I do not consider myself to have fully grasped it even now. But I do concentrate on this: I leave the past behind and with hands outstretched to whatever lies ahead I go straight for the goal—my reward the honour of being called by God in Christ.

(Philippians 3)

Only Someone who knows the plans He has for us has the courage it takes to show us how to die so that we might live.

Storms may come, and storms may go

On By Charis PsalloIn Art7 Comments

“Recovery”

Acrylic on panel

When I saw this tree beside a dirt road in the country I knew I had to paint it. The main trunk, struck by some calamity, had died, yet the tree was not dead. A branch, still nurtured by the roots, became the new tree.

Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but desire fulfilled is a tree of life. (Proverbs 13:12)

Sometimes we think our dreams are dead. Sometimes it looks like all hope is gone. Sometimes it’s our own fault and the dream looks as though it has died as a result of our own foolishness. Sometimes health fails, spouses leave, businesses crumble, loved ones die. I don’t blame God for nasty things that happen in our lives. But I trust him to turn them into something good.

We live in a fallen world where the consequences of a single sin can have a domino effect that goes on for generations. Innocence lost is innocence lost whether it is the result of our own choices or someone elses. But God can restore and build on the very things that cause us so much pain. He’s so good at using our disastrous circumstances that we may think He set them up. Not really. Jesus Christ didn’t come to condemn; he came to save. He came to set us free.

I painted a storm behind the tree. Is it approaching or leaving? Storms may come and storms may go; I leave that decision to the viewer.

The words of an Amy Grant song came to mind as I worked on this. I wonder just how many storms it will take until I finally know Jesus Christ has promised to never leave me or forsake me?

Arms of Love

Lord I’m really glad You’re here.
I hope you feel the same when You see all my fear,
And how I fail,
I fall sometimes.
It’s hard to walk on shifting sand.
I miss the rock, and find there’s nowhere left to stand;
I start to cry.
Lord, please help me raise my hands so You can pick me up.
Hold me close,
Hold me tighter.

I have found a place where I can hide.
It’s safe inside
Your arms of love.
Like a child who’s held throughout a storm,
You keep me warm
In Your arms of love.

Storms will come and storms will go.
Wonder just how many storms it takes until
I finally know
You’re here always.
Even when my skies are far from gray,
I can stay;
Teach me to stay there,

In the place I’ve found where I can hide.
It’s safe inside
Your arms of love.
Like a child who’s held throughout a storm,
You keep me warm
In Your arms of love.

In Him there is no fear.
No fear!

You who sometimes were brought so low, rise up!

On By Charis PsalloIn Uncategorized11 Comments

Photo: from my deck

It’s too hot to sleep so I got up and edited some photos I took from my deck yesterday. The music playing on my earphones is from The Odes Project which are modern settings of the oldest hymns we have found. They were written in Aramaic around 100 A.D. by someone who was known only as Solomon -perhaps an Essene convert to Christianity. I love this album. Tonight Ode 8 struck me as particularly fitting for this picture. As someone who has been healed after many years of severe depression I praise Abba Father for raising me up from the pit of despair and putting a new song in my mouth. God has been so very good to me.

These are the lyrics to the adapted version:

You who sometimes were brought so low, Rise up, RISE UP
You who were in silence: now raise your voice , Rise up, RISE UP
You that were despised be lifted up, Rise up, RISE UP
For the right hand of the Lord is with you right now Rise up, RISE UP
Open your hearts, All you who are saved, IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER
Through all generations, abiding in His love, IN THE NAME OF THE SON
Now and forever, Let your love abound, IN THE NAME OF THE SPIRIT
For the right hand of the Lord is with you right now Rise up, RISE UP

Chorus:
Christ in us, this wondrous mystery
Christ in us, from age to age
Christ in us, the hope of glory
For You have sealed us in your name

You who sometimes were brought so low, stand tall, RISE UP
You who were in silence: may you shout for joy, RISE UP
You who were despised may you be lifted up, RISE UP
For the right hand of the Lord is with you right now Rise up, RISE UP

This is a translation of the longer hymn:

Ode 8

Open, open your hearts to the exultation of the Lord, and let your love abound
from the heart to the lips.
In order to bring forth fruits to the Lord, a holy life; and to talk with watchfulness in His light.
Rise up and stand erect, you who sometimes were brought low.
You who were in silence, speak, for your mouth has been opened.
You who were despised, from henceforth be lifted up, for your Righteousness has been lifted up;
For the right hand of the Lord is with you, and He will be your Helper.
And peace was prepared for you, before what may be your war.
Hear the word of truth, and receive the knowledge of the Most High.
Your flesh may not understand that which I am about to say to you; nor your garment that which I am about to show
you.
Keep my mystery, you who are kept by it; keep my faith, you who are kept by it.
And understand my knowledge, you who know me in truth; love me with affection, you who love;
For I turn not my face from my own, because I know them.
And before they had existed, I recognized them; and imprinted a seal on their faces.
I fashioned their members, and my own breasts I prepared for them, that they
might drink my holy milk and live by it.
I am pleased by them, and am not ashamed by them.
For my workmanship are they, and the strength of my thoughts.
Therefore who can stand against my work? Or who is not subject to them?
I willed and fashioned mind and heart, and they are my own. And upon my right
hand I have set my elect ones.
And my righteousness goes before them, and they shall not be deprived of my
name; for it is with them.
Pray and increase, and abide in the love of the Lord;
And you who were loved in the Beloved, and you who are kept in Him who lives,
and you who are saved in Him who was saved.
And you shall be found incorrupt in all ages, on account of the name of your
Father.
Hallelujah.