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
Proverbs
31:10-12: Who can
find a virtuous woman for her price is far above rubies. The heart of her
husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil. She
will do him good and not evil all the days of her life.
Proverbs
31: 25-31: Strength
and honour are her clothing…she openeth her mouth in wisdom; and in her tongue
is the law of kindness…..her children arise up and call her blessed; her
husband also, and he praiseth her….favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but
a woman who reveres the Lord, she shall be praised.
The ‘prince of this world’, the adversary of all that is good, is seeking to dull our inherent spiritual natures that we as women are born with by using the world and its ideals to weaken and eliminate our influence to the great detriment of our families and the society at large. He does this by devaluing marriage and motherhood; reinforcing the lie that a woman’s sexuality is what defines her worth; erasing of differences between the masculine and the feminine and even convincing us that we don’t know what a woman is.
Women today are encouraged to be more aggressive, tough and confrontational yet the Father made us gentle, kind, tender and loving. Nurturing our spiritual selves and putting aside the values of this world will ensure that we sharpen these attributes and become powerful enough to lift others to higher ground; this means our children, our spouses, our extended families, our friends, our co-workers, our communities. When we know who we are and don't allow the world to confuse us, we are being single minded, in other words, we are being at one with God who made us.
In
today’s world where women who murder their children are hailed as heroes, I
want to celebrate women whose womanhood exceeds the price of rubies. These are
women of God whose example endures forever. These are women who will get a seat
in the kingdom of God because of the goodness within them. What price would you
put to the value, contribution and example of these women:
·
The
suffering of Eve
·
The
sacrifice of Sarah
·
The
courage of Esther
·
The
devotion of Hannah
·
The
loyalty of Ruth
·
The
motherly protection of Elisabeth
·
The
submission of Mary
I will start with the suffering of Mother Eve. The woman who had no luxuries to retreat to, no appliances to make her life easier, no girlfriends who understood her difficulties and offered support, the woman who only had a willingness to start from scratch. Not only did Eve’s spiritual acumen lead her and her husband to leave the Garden of Eden and initiate the Plan of Salvation, but the courage to enter the world of suffering is beyond admiration….and suffer she did…..
A woman with much insight into Mother Eve by the name of Arta Romney Ballif paid this poetic homage to her who was the first woman to know sorrow:
God
said, “BE FRUITFUL, AND MULTIPLY”
And
God said, “I WILL GREATLY MULTIPLY THY SORROW”
Thy sorrow, sorrow, sorrow –
I have gotten a man from the Lord
I have traded the fruit of the
garden for fruit of my body
For a laughing bundle of humanity.
Adam, where are the boys?
Where is Abel?
He is long caring for his flocks.
Are the ewes lambing in this storm?
Why your troubled face, Adam? Are
you ill?
Why so pale, so agitated?
Dead? What is
dead? Merciful God!
I am trying to understand.
You said, “Abel is dead.”
But I am skilled with herbs….
Herbs will not
heal? Dead?
And Cain? Where is Cain?
Listen to that thunder.
Cain cursed?
God said, “A fugitive and a
vagabond?”
But God can’t do that.
They are my sons, too.
I gave them birth in the valley of
pain.
This is his home
This the soil he loved
Where he toiled for golden wheat
For tasselled corn.
To the hill country?
Quick, we must find him
I worry, thinking of him wandering
With no place to lay his head.
Cain cursed? A wanderer, a roamer?
Abel, my son dead?
And Cain, my son, a fugitive?
Two sons Adam, we had two sons
Both – oh, Adam – multiply sorrow.
Dear God, why?
Tell me again about the fruit.
Please tell me again, why?
- Arta Romney Ballif
I weep for Mother Eve and all she experienced,
endured and suffered. This, my friends, is a ruby far above price…..
- CATHRYNE ALLEN
Lift up your aching heart
And seek your release in me.
I am the sacrifice that was paid
For your years of pain to cease.
My mercy shall spill from Me
And erase every tear
You have wept seeking peace.
Come unto me,
In me you will find release.
-
Cathryne
Allen
Alma
of the Book of Mormon taught that God grants unto men according to their
desires, whether it be unto salvation or unto destruction (Alma 29:4). Elder
Neal A. Maxwell (1926-2004) of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles taught our
desires affect our personal development and eventually determine our eternal
blessings:
“Desires…become
real determinants, even when, with pitiful naivete, we do not really want the
consequences of our desires….therefore, what we insistently desire, over time,
is what we will eventually become and what we will receive in eternity.
“Righteous
desires need to be relentless, therefore, because, said President Brigham
Young, ‘the men and women who desire to obtain seats in the celestial kingdom,
will find that they must battle every day’ (in Journal of Discourses, 11:140.
Therefore, true Christian soldiers are more than weekend warriors…
“Remember,
brothers and sisters, it is our own desires which determine the sizing and the
attractiveness of various temptations. We set our thermostats as to
temptations. Thus educating and training our desires clearly requires
understanding the truths of the gospel, yet even more is involved. President
Brigham Young confirmed, saying, ‘it is evident that many who understand the
truth do not govern themselves by it; consequently, no matter how true and
beautiful truth is, you have to take the passions of the people and mould them
to the law of God’ (in Journal of Discourses, 7:55).
-
Neal
A. Maxwell, According to the Desire of our Hearts, in CR Oct 1996,
Ensign Nov 1996
I
have for a long time now believed that our righteous desires come with us into
mortality because they are God given. They correspond with God’s plan for our
development, growth and work we have been sent here to do. If those desires
align with Gospel principles then we can be assured they are innate desires ‘trailing
clouds of glory coming from God’…..
If
our desires closely match with the values of the world, we can be assured they
will not lead us to God. Proverbs and Ecclesiastes warn about such desires
extensively:
Proverbs
21:25: The desire of the slothful killeth him; for his hands refuse to labour.
Proverbs
21:26: He coveteth greedily all the day long: but the righteous giveth and
spareth not.
Ecclesiastes
5:10: He that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver; nor he that
loveth abundance with increase: this is also vanity.
Ecclesiastes
11:9: acknowledges that people feel drawn to follow their ‘heart’ and ‘eyes’,
but adds accountability: ‘walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of
thine eyes: but know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee into
judgment. In other words, because what you wish for.
Proverbs
14:12 gives a stark warning that desires that feel right in the moment can lead
somewhere dark: “There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end
thereof are the ways of death”.
Proverbs
11:19 stands in contrast to the destination of death: “As righteousness tendeth
to life: so he that pursueth evil pursueth it to his own death.
This
is my testimony of the power of desire. For years and years I could only really
see the Saviour in my mind as I studied the scriptures and lived the Gospel.
Then only a few years ago all of a sudden the Saviour took the back seat and I
could see the Father and my longing for Him became uppermost in my mind. I
wanted to be with Him, remember Him as I knew Him from my premortal life, and
live by His side forever. On some days the desire to be in His presence was so
strong I would shed tears. This, of course, is the way it is meant to be. The
Saviour came to reveal the Father to us. I could write pages about this based
on scripture (see Jeffrey R. Holland’s conference talk “The Grandeur of God”
October 2003).
I
noticed something very significant after I came to desire the presence of the
Father. Obedience became a much easier road to be on. I was elevated in the
direction I should go that would lead me to where I wanted to be. I realised
desire is the great motivator. If the
desire is strong enough, we will do anything to fulfil it. The destination is
the focal point to remember.
Proverbs
10:24: The fear of
the wicked, it shall come upon him: but the desire of the righteous shall be
granted.
Like the rising sun that melts into the sea,
Like the night that kisses early dawn,
Like the river that meets the shore;
You bid me come to Thee
In sweet communion forever more.
-
Cathryne Allen
Proverbs
2:6: For the Lord
giveth wisdom: out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding.
Proverbs
4:7: Wisdom is the
principal thing; therefore, get wisdom: and with all the getting get
understanding.
I
must admit reading Proverbs sometimes makes me feel like I am just reading nice
words…because of Solomon and his humanity which rejected the most important component
of wisdom, that of moral conduct. Wisdom is a conglomeration of pretty, useless
words if there is no moral conduct to support them. The conduct is the fruits
of wisdom.
Because
the word ‘wisdom’ is feminine in gender, it is allegorized as a woman in the
book of Proverbs. The adulterous woman in Proverbs is a metaphor for
foolishness as foolishness is opposite of wisdom. It is fascinating to me that Solomon’s
moral conduct was consumed by the ‘strange’ women he married out of the
covenant who turned his heart to idolatry (1 Kings 11:1-8)
The
scriptures use the metaphor of marriage to describe the Lord’s covenant with
His people. They portray the House of Israel as the bride and the Saviour as
the bridegroom. Among many references are these:
Isaiah
54:5-6: “Thy Maker is thine husband…the Lord hath called thee as a wife of
youth…”; Hosea 2:19-20: “I will betroth thee unto me for ever; Matthew 25:1,10:
the parable of the ten virgins going to meet the bridegroom; Revelation 19:7,9,
21:2,9: the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready…..prepared
as a bride adorned for her husband…the bride, the Lamb’s wife; D&C
109:73-74: that thy Church shine forth…and be adorned as a bride for the day of
the Lord’s coming.
In
Proverbs Chapter 7, Solomon admonishes his son to keep the commandments and
cling to wisdom as his ‘sister’ (v 4) that he may be protected against ‘the
strange woman’ (v 5) which would lead him into ‘whoredom’ or ‘adultery’ . The
mind boggles that he could not apply this to himself.
The
idolatry born out of foolishness as opposed to the moral conduct of wisdom, is considered
as adultery in the case of the marriage covenant between the Lamb and Israel,
His bride:
Exodus
34:14-15: the Lord warns Israel not to worship other gods, “lest they go a
whoring after their gods”; Jeremiah 3:8-9: Israel ‘committed adultery with
stones and with stocks’ meaning idols made of stone and wood; Hosea 2:2,5:
Israel is portrayed as an unfaithful spouse – “put away her whoredoms…and her
adulteries” as she says “I will go after my lovers” referring to false gods; Ezekiel
16:32: compares covenant unfaithfulness to a wife committing adultery ‘taking
strangers instead of her husband’.
My
hair stood on end when I read this about immorality in heathen worship:
“Among
the ancient nations of the East, with the exception of the Jews, prostitution
appears to have been connected with religious worship, and to have been not
merely tolerated but encouraged…in Egypt, Phoenicia, Assyria, Chaldea, Canaan
and Persia, the worship of Isis, Moloch, Baal, Astarte, Mylitta and other
deities consisted of the most extravagant sensual orgies and the temples were
merely centers of vice. In Babylon some degree of prostitution appeared to have
been even compulsory and imposed upon all women in honour of the goddess
Mylitta. In India the ancient connection between religion and prostitution
still survives.” (Encyclopedia Britannica, (1952 Edition) Volume 18, p
596)
Maybe
the God of Israel knew what He was doing when He gave Solomon all that wisdom
he desired…..because he knew that one day he would become a symbol of
foolishness…..oh the irony!
As
Israel, we have trodden worldly paths
That
have left us battered, scarred,
And
parched in search of love.
Our
lovers were many but
Our
hearts were empty.
At
long last
We
embrace the love that lasts,
We
prepare for the wedding feast
And
abandon our treacherous past.
When
You appear
in
the Millenial day
Those
who know Your grace
Will
gather like Your sheep
In
the blazing sun of glory
To
come to Your embrace.
-
Cathryne Allen
