Will I be lost in crowds of heaven
When my mortal shell at last I leave,
And will this earthly life appear unreal
When my true home is to me revealed?
Will I come to see Thy face
I so often sought on bended knee,
And forget all the lonely moments
I suffered with merciful help from Thee?
My heart will rend within my chest
When I kneel before Thy throne;
I will weep with grateful heart
For cherished truths that I have known.
-
CATHRYNE
ALLEN
(Art: Christ by David Beraru)
Sometimes when I consider the atrocities in the world today and some of the things we say and do, from our leaders down to the common man, I am convinced we are operating here on the level of intelligence called stupidity. I don’t know how God tolerates us in this weakened state of mortality.
At other times I hear a piece of music
that lifts me to the gates of heaven or I see a piece of art that rends my soul
with gratitude for beauty or read a poem that bares someone’s soul and I see the
other side of humanity. I am often amazed by the talents, strengths, attributes
and achievements of many of us. I am especially enthralled by people enshrined
in holy writ…..their capabilities, their sufferings, their level of endurance,
their skills at handling life, and especially their faith, devotion to and love
of God.
I marvel at our uniqueness, our creativity, our intelligence, our very essence and all that we are and are yet to become. I imagine if there were no mortal days of probation I might never have heard of a man called Abraham Lincoln in the vastness of the Universe or been moved by music written by Mozart or heard Renee Fleming sing Casta Diva. What an amazing gift it is to be a witness of someone's unique expression of self and of the mark they leave on this world. Most of us will not earn a page in the annals of history. Most of us will never become another Abraham Lincoln or Mozart or Helaman or Isaiah but all of us have a unique light within with which we can illuminate the world.
Alma spoke of having the image of God in our countenance (Alma 5:14). Imagine our unique talents, gifts, capacities and personalities, our very souls, enhanced by an image of an exalted God. Imagine the beauty that would exude from us if we truly loved God and possessed the Saviour’s attributes. Moroni thought it was possible. He admonished us to pray for the pure love of Christ so that when He appears we shall be like Him and thereby know Him (Moroni 7:48). Imagine the hearts we could reach if they saw the Saviour in us. Imagine how many souls we could influence and bring home with us if we bore the image of Christ in our countenance.
God sees us in our entirety. He sees who
we were, our present limitations and what we will yet become. He sees us as an
amazing assortment of humanity and most of all He sees our potential. This is
how He can tolerate us here and now.
In the realms of heaven when your glorious destiny hung in the balance, the Saviour saw you and your worth and your potential. Besides His overriding desire to bring glory to the Father, this is what propelled Him to the cross.
In the words of Dr. Seuss: "Today you are you, that is truer than
true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You". How truly magnificent
are you?!!!
- CATHRYNE ALLEN
(Art: A Peaceful Heart by Michael Malm)
You paved the way to glories untold
With drops of blood and hallowed tears,
Gifting me life beyond these mortal years.
The bread of life, the living water,
Flowing into my heart from yours;
With parched lips I approach
So I will thirst never more.
- CATHRYNE ALLEN
(Art: The Water That I Shall Give by Eva Koleva Timothy)
“If all the
sick for whom we pray were healed, if all the righteous were protected and the
wicked destroyed, the whole program of the Father would be annulled and the
basic principle of the gospel, free agency, would be ended. No man would have
to live by faith.
“If joy and
peace and rewards were instantaneously given the doer of good, there would be
no evil – all would do good but not because of the rightness of doing good.
There would be no test of strength, no development of character, no growth of
powers, no free agency, only satanic controls.
“Should all
prayers be immediately answered according to our desires and our limited
understanding, then there would be little or no suffering, sorrow,
disappointment, or even death, and if these were not, there would also be no
joy, success, resurrection, nor eternal life and godhood.”
-
President Spencer, W. Kimball, “Faith Precedes the
Miracle”, p 97
In all that President Kimball said here, the test of strength, development of character and growth of power is the most significant.
A few years
ago I wrote a post on the social media extolling the virtues of Christ’s grace
and His power to save us, but not only in regards to our overall salvation, but
in every aspect of our lives. I basically attacked the often repeated phrase of
our day, “you are enough”. I said we are never enough without Him. My comments highly aggravated one reader who
commented to me that I was wrong to be making people believe in and rely on a
person they couldn’t even see. She said when she needed something to happen in
her life, she gathered up all her strength and she went ahead and did it, not
relying on anyone else. I thought at the time that this was her way of denying
the existence and power of Christ. I replied that I don't have the power to make anyone do anything, it is up to the individual what they believe and do.
I have
learnt since then there is some truth in this. I had come to the point where my
faith in God became the only thing I
relied on, to the denial of my own power. I have learnt of late that sometimes
we rely on God far too much to do things for us, to rescue us from situations
we don’t like, to heal our cracks, to make every situation better….and when He
doesn’t we question His goodness, His mercy and even, in the end, His existence.
Imagine if
God did everything for us. We would remain like toddlers for eternity, relying
on a parent for our very existence. Sometimes we forget that we are here to
rise to the status of a god. Some years ago I received an understanding that we
are here to learn to harness the power of faith, without which we cannot become
gods…..but not just any faith. The faith that we are to have in our control is
manifesting faith. This is the power of the individual.
This is
manifesting faith…. It is speaking the Word and creation comes into being (John
1:1-3); it is sending forth the winds, the rains and the floods from your mouth
and controlling the elements according to your will (Ether 2:24); it is cursing
the fig tree and watching it wither as you speak (Matthew 21:19,20); it is
speaking to the tempest waves of the sea and watch it become still (Mark 4:39).
It is seeing the end result in your mind and bringing it into being.
Brother of
Jared learnt this lesson well when he presented 16 stones to the Lord and saw
His finger light them up (Ether 3: 4-6) and when he ‘said unto the mountain
Zerin, “remove” – it was removed.’ (Ether 12: 30). If God exercised His power
in our behalf constantly, we would never come to learn of the strength of our
own power. Yes, there are things that are beyond us at times, when we can do
something ourselves and when we have to rely on the Lord. The wisdom is in knowing
the difference. If we combined faith in ourselves and faith in God, we would be
unstoppable.
Think about
it…..Christ couldn’t walk for Peter on the sea of Galilee….He could only say: “Come”
(Matthew 14:29)
- CATHRYNE ALLEN
(Art: Come by David Bowman)
I lift, I lift,
Above the world below.
I reach and find Your
hand
To guide me where I am
meant to go.
You are my guiding light,
You are my all,
You are my inner compass
That will bring me home.
- CATHRYNE ALLEN
(Art: Guiding Light by Ivan Guaderrama)
We are
tempest tossed on this sea of humanity. Some of us are lost, scared, alienated,
and most of us are suffering from some negative effect of mortal life, but
there is one collective way in which we all suffer.
I have been
through trials before but have always had good health. The trial of bad health
I am going through now has been incredibly hard for me because none of my
trials before have tested me to this extent. It began to frighten me of late
that I might be losing what I considered to be the most important part of me…..my
faith. I was slipping into bad depression one day thinking if my faith in God
was taken away from me, there would be nothing of me left because my faith was
my make-up.
Upon
further reflection I realized what I feared in reality was not losing my faith
but my connection to God that I had developed in fifty years of my Church
membership. I had come to the point where I was hearing the voice of God in my
life in different ways and my testimony of His existence was iron clad. To lose
that would be the devastation like I had never known before. I could not
comprehend how lost I would feel in this vast universe. This is fear of
nothingness for me.
For many
years now I have tried to understand the true meaning of earthly suffering. I
have been given different gospel perspectives to this question which I agree
with but nothing had really stood out to me in such a personal way as what I
learnt through physical suffering. If its not the explanation for all, it is
for me. On many days of intense pain I have felt alienated from God, abandoned
and all alone. Pain seems to do that. Physical suffering teaches us what it
would feel like to be spiritually cut off from God’s presence forever. Once you
understand it, it becomes a deterrent to sinning.
Just being
taken out of God’s presence in which we lived for eons and placed in another
sphere of existence has an effect on all of us, even if we don’t realize it. A
French philosopher and Jesuit priest, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin said something
profound once: “We are spiritual beings having a human experience and not
humans having a spiritual experience”. Because of this truth, we are all
hungering and seeking that spiritual connection we once had with God, even if
we don’t realise it. Some of us who do not find it in the right place, seek
devastating counterfeits which lead them to self-destruction. The truth
remains, we are all seeking God.
The good
news is that there is hope…..for all of us. There is a spiritual umbilical cord
that ties us to the origin of our existence and ensures we do not have to be
lost forever. I cannot think of a greater happiness and joy than being in the
presence of a God of love for all eternity. This was the Saviour’s primary
motivation for His eternal sacrifice…..that we be with the Father forever.
Before He
went to the Garden and the cross, the Saviour was certain that the Father would
be with Him during His suffering. He said as much to his disciples (John 8:29; 16:32).
Imagine His surprise when the Father withdrew and He was left alone. This was
needful for a couple of reasons: 1. where
there is sin, which was upon the Saviour during the Atonement, God’s spirit
withdraws (Mosiah 2:36); and 2. so the
glory would be exclusively His and He could say, “I have trodden the winepress
alone…” (D&C 133:50).
This,
however, is the primary reason why the Father withdrew. It was imperative that
the Saviour understood spiritual death from first-hand experience and what it
would be like for us, sinners, to be cut off from the presence of God forever. For
this He endured the cross until He could say ‘it is finished’ (John 19:30). The
Atonement overcame spiritual death and redeemed us from the Fall.
Considering
the closeness and connection He had with His Father, I cannot imagine the
devastation He felt during this ordeal of alienation but this too He was
willing to suffer for our sake. This is the God we worship, this is the God we
love. All honour and praise be to His name forever.
- CATHRYNE ALLEN
(Art: Uplift the World by Eva Koleva Timothy)
He
arose and rebuked the roaring winds
and
the raging sea,
He,
who with His word
caused
the earth to be,
Spoke
to the Galilean tempest:
“Peace, be still”.
He
who has all things
under
His command,
Calmed
the troubled sea of dismay
in
the souls of men.
He,
who holds all humanity
in
the palm of His hand,
Caused
the waves of the sea
to
whisper His name.
- CATHRYNE ALLEN
(Art: Emmanuel by Danny Hahlbohm)
