CHRISTMAS BABE

 

Born This Day by Liz Lemon Swindle

A God of splendour;

A babe of mortal birth;

All power surrendered

For the lowly of this earth.

- Cathryne Allen 

A CHRONICLED LIFE

 

Art: The Letter by Abraham Solomon [1860]

I used to chronicle my life, religiously. I have a mountain of filled journals. Each year I would keep a journal and a planner. Writing is my shtick. This year I have not even started a journal. My planner is full of blank pages. There is nothing to plan and only woes to record. I know a journal should be a record of one’s struggles as well as accomplishments but I have this aversion to being weak and recording my weak moments for my posterity is something I avoid, so no journal. In other words, I am full of pride and I want to be seen as a better person than I am.

I have climbed some big mountains in my life:  eleven years of soul crushing marriage and twenty years of guilt ridden and stomach ulcerating single parenthood. I thought I was done but now I am climbing mountains born of small, simple things I used to take for granted: five minute showers testing my endurance of standing, walking without assistance, isolation induced cabin fever, torture of medically compromised digestive system, impossible task of putting socks on, motivation to do anything or even to endure another day.

I have stopped communicating with a lot of my friends, largely because I am sometimes told to count my blessings so my challenges would not seem so insurmountable and even to remember there are people worse off than me. As if either of these sentiments should alleviate my pain. I have thought about it and this is my take on this:

 Living with chronic pain is like being in a domestic violence situation. You have a husband who hits you every day and hurts you physically and mentally but you should feel grateful you have a husband at all who is putting a roof over your head. So what I am hearing instead of those sentiments is this: You have a monster on your back who slaps you around all day and reminds you that you now feel so small you could fit yourself in a match box but you have people around who are willing to wash your dirty underwear and clean your residence so you don’t live in filth and who sacrifice their time to buy you food so you live another day of suffering, so you should be grateful….

The worst of it is your loss of power…..to even live. On days when I no longer want to, I retreat to dark chocolate to get me through, only today that morphed into two whole blocks of Old Gold. The resulting headache and nausea at the end of the day was punishment I would not want to repeat.

I wrote the other day that I am reading The Book Thief once again. A small blessing in my otherwise empty days. I spend half the time reflecting on human suffering and the other half wishing I could write like that. Sometimes it’s the small mercies that outweigh the emptiness. It’s funny this experience we call life. I wonder if I will ever look back and miss it.  

The current goal: To say "Thy will be done".....until then there is grace....

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

MAGNIFICENT GRACE

 

Receiving Grace by Greg Collins

“The main idea of the word ‘grace’ is divine means of help or strength, given through the bounteous mercy and love of Jesus Christ. It is likewise through the grace of the Lord that individuals, through faith in the Atonement of Jesus Christ and repentance of their sins, receive strength and assistance to do good works that they otherwise would not be able to maintain if left to their own means.

“This grace is an enabling power that allows men and women to lay hold on eternal life and exaltation after they have expended their own best efforts. Thus, the enabling and strengthening aspect of the Atonement helps us to see and to do and to become good in ways that we could never recognize or accomplish with our limited mortal capacity.”

-          Elder David A. Bednar, in CR Oct 2004, Ensign Nov 2004, 76-77

I have always believed in the principle of grace as a means of assistance to help us overcome and rise to higher ground…..to climb higher in our efforts to fulfil our potential than we can climb on our own….until recently I had an opportunity to discover that grace can save us in our darkest moments.

I have been facing the challenge of physical incapacity for over a year now. With it came also the mental oppression of equal intensity….depression, anxiety, loss of self-esteem. I came to the point where I felt I was being lost, that I had lost me and all the personal growth that I had achieved over the years. In the extremity of my anguish I decided that I could not carry on any longer. It frightened me and I pleaded with God to save me. I knew that being in this fallen world I was on the lowest rung of the ladder and He was on the highest and that He could reach down and lift me higher than I could climb on my own.

In my extremity and in His mercy, His grace reached to the pit of my misery and enabled me to climb to higher ground. Sometimes it is not trophy worthy achievements but plain endurance that needs the grace of someone bigger than ourselves to prevent the rubber band from snapping, to stretch us further than we can go on our own…..because in that endurance we might just find an answer to our suffering, an understanding we needed, a piece of growth we have been missing….and only He knows…and so the grace, always the grace and His love and His mercy.

How vast You are that

You can fill the immensity of space

Yet so small You can fit

Into my heart with eternal grace.

 

How small and insignificant am I

Among the countless children

Of this earth’s dust and fleeting pace

But of what importance

To Your saving grace!

 

-      Cathryne Allen

THE MILLENIAL DAY

 

He Shall Reign by Susan Edwards

“What does it mean to bind Satan? How is he bound? Our revelation says: “And in that day Satan shall not have power to tempt any man” (D&C 101:28). Does this mean that power is withdrawn from Satan so he can no longer entice men to do evil? Or does it mean that men no longer succumb to his enticements because their hearts are so set on righteousness that they refuse to forsake that which is good to follow him who is evil?

“Clearly it means the latter. Satan was not bound in heaven, in the very presence of God, in the sense that he was denied the right and power to preach false doctrine and to invite men to walk away from that God whose children they were; nay, in this sense, he could not have been bound in heaven, for even he must have his agency. How then will Satan be bound during the Millenium? It will be by the righteousness of the people.”

-          Bruce R. McConkie, The Millenial Messiah [1982], p 668

The day that is spoken here is the Millenial Day when Christ shall come to subdue all enemies under His feet (D&C 49:6). The preceding scripture in this chapter of Doctrine and Covenants convinces me of the truth that our righteousness will bind Satan and his attempts to draw us away. This scripture states: “And in that day whatsoever any man shall ask, it shall be given him” (D&C 101:27).

The only way it can happen that God will give us whatever we ask for is if our petitions are founded in righteousness and we ask for the right thing that is expedient for us. There are many warnings in the scriptures that tell us not to ask for anything out of weakness, such as:  if we ask and don’t receive it, it means we asked for the wrong thing (James 4:3); if you ask for anything that you shouldn’t have, it will be for your detriment (D&C 88:65); we should only ask for that which is right (3 Nephi 18:20); we should not use ‘vain repetitions’ or pray like God doesn’t know our needs (Matthew 6:7-8).

And my favourite which proves my point here rather well….the Lord told Nephi that because he has declared the word with ‘unwearyingness’ all things shall be done ‘according to his word’ because he will not ask for that which is contrary to God’s will’ (Helaman 10:5). In other words, ask for what you will and it shall be given you because I know you will not ask for anything you shouldn’t ask or want…..because of your righteousness. This is the point we will arrive at during the Millenium. This is the point when Satan will have no power over us. No temptation will be greater than our faithfulness.

The only way we can become so aligned with God that we will bind Satan with righteousness is to come out of the spiritual Babylon we are presently in. We are about to study Daniel who survived ancient Babylon and its grandeur and its corruption. I wondered how it was possible for a stalwart Israelite to live in such an environment and stay true to one’s faith. This is what Daniel taught me…..it is possible to survive Babylon…..and to even rise above it, if you have a connection with the God of Heaven. Consider just a few words of his worshipful prayer that testifies of this: “I thank thee, and praise thee, O thou God of my fathers, who hast given me wisdom and might……blessed be the name of God for ever and ever: for wisdom and might are his….he giveth wisdom unto the wise, and knowledge to them that know understanding……” (Daniel 2:20-23).

The time is running out and the enemy is at our feet….

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

YOUR LIVING WORD

 

Jesus of Nazareth by Greg Collins

I stand in awe of Your sacrifice

And Your soul’s pain;

The body freely given

For nothing of You to remain.

 

I ache, I ache,

Knowing the cost;

Then I read Your living word

And I am comforted

Knowing nothing is lost.

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

ON SUCCESS

 

Feast Upon the Word by Liz Lemon Swindle

“Success in righteousness, the power to avoid deception and resist temptation, guidance in our daily lives, healing of the soul – These are but a few of the promises the Lord has given to those who will come to His word.

“Does the Lord promise and not fulfill? Surely if He tells us that these things will come to us if we lay hold upon His word, then the blessings can be ours. And if we do not, then the blessings may be lost. However diligent we may be in other areas, certain blessings are to be found only in the scriptures, only in coming to the word of the Lord and holding fast to it as we make our way through the mists of darkness to the tree of life.”

-          President Ezra Taft Benson, “The Power of the Word”, Ensign May 1986, p 82

There are two things in particular amongst the promises here that I want to remark on. The first is deception which I am seeing is increasing in the world today at an alarming rate, especially amongst the younger generation that has been largely raised in the lap of luxury. So blinded are many of them that they deny their blessings and believe in lies that are being spread amongst them. They have come to believe the country of plenty they have been raised in is the worst country in the world, not the countries that people  have been fleeing for a better life for years on end.

Another type of deception can creep upon us. It’s the deception we are tempted to fall into when we are going through trials and any opposition to happiness we feel we are entitled to in this life. I have learnt through this difficult stage of illness I am going through that my thoughts and convictions can be distorted hourly and even daily and deception about God’s goodness and His ability to care and save starts to set in. Time and time again, the scriptures have brought me back to sanity and truth and enabled me to see my life and myself more clearly. It has given me strength and a will to carry on. To this I testify.

This in turn brings me to the healing of my soul, the other blessing I wanted to comment on. Whenever emotions of opposition strike, they damage the soul within. If this damage is not addressed on daily basis, it festers and grows until our outlook on life itself sets in unfavourable dimensions. Turning to the word of God daily repairs the tears in the fabric of our spirituality. This comes through the administration of the Holy Ghost. When we feel His presence, the healing comes to the innermost recesses of our spirit that no one else can reach. To this also I testify.

President Benson asked, “Does the Lord promise and not fulfil?” One year I studied the Book of Mormon and wrote in the margins the Saviour’s characteristics that I came across. When I finished and looked back, I found two of them on just about every page, that the Lord is merciful and that He always fulfils His promises.  In fact I realised the prophets of the Book of Mormon wrote their history to be a witness of this truth. One such reference to this is: “Yea, all this was done that the word of the Lord might be fulfilled.” (Mosiah 21:4).

The Lord himself has testified to us of this quality that belongs to Him when He said: “Who am I, saith the Lord, that have promised and have not fulfilled?” (D&C 58:31). The next verses explain that when blessings don’t come, it’s often because people didn’t obey, not because God failed to keep His word.

I have found a world of knowledge, comfort, perspective, enhancement, a path to truth and strength to endurance in the scriptures. Whenever I need to hear God, I allow my scriptures to fall open randomly and 99% of the time, they would open to a page with a highlighted scripture I needed to read. It never fails to amaze me.

There is a story that reinforces this practice of a businessman who came to his pastor with deep concerns about the financial ruin he was facing. The pastor advised him to allow his scriptures to fall open randomly and to act on the first sentence he sees on that page. Some years later he came to the pastor again to tell him of the financial abundance and security his family was blessed with. The pastor asked him if he had followed his advice and if it worked. The man replied he did. The pastor asked what was the first sentence he read and the man replied: Chapter 2. It was as simple as that. This is the power of the scriptures.

Daily I stand in my holy place

As I feast upon Thy word,

Ever hopeful I will meet You there,

Thy Spirit to embrace

And the cares of this world to arrest.

I reach for You in darkness

And step up to heaven’s door;

I am bathed in light

And am granted entrance to Your heart.

 

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

A CALL TO BATTLE

 

A Warrior of Light by Greg Collins

There is a desire in my soul

That wants to conquer Goliath

And watch him fall….

This warrior within me never sleeps

And yearns to hear the angels’ call,

A call to battle to make the devil fall.

And when Christ comes in clouds so holy

He will conquer that enemy

And we will confess His glory.

 

-      Cathryne Allen