You opened my heart
And searched for what
You there did not see;
My feeble faith and lack of trust
Stood in contrast to your will for me.
You sorrowed at the tears I shed
With every step I was led to take
To find You in my hour of agony.
How patiently You stood waiting
With open arms hoping I would come to Thee;
How patiently You hoped
I would give You all that was lacking in me.
- Cathryne Allen
True faith
can never show its strength in the absence of resistance. Resistance comes when
nothing is going right, when your pain is at its highest level, when fulfilment
of God’s promises is slow in coming, when your friends sew doubts in your mind,
when God seems far away and you feel abandoned…..
Resistance
comes when your trust in God needs to be tested. I discovered that you can have
faith in God and His existence and even in a multitude of proofs of His love
but you can still waver in your trust of Him. For fifty years since I joined
the Church, I thrived in my faith in God and then my health was taken away and the real
test came. The resistance manifested itself through trust. I had to ask myself
many times if I trusted in everything I believed about Him.
In Lecture
3 of Lectures On Faith, Joseph Smith said that “three things are necessary in
order that any rational and intelligent being may exercise faith in God unto
life and salvation”: 1. The idea that He actually exists; 2. A correct idea of
His character, perfections, and attributes; and 3. An actual knowledge that the
course of life which he is pursuing is according to His will.
Some years
ago I decided to follow up on this advice and studied the Book of Mormon that
year looking for the Saviour’s attributes and traits within its pages. I wanted
to know Him. I wrote what I came across in the margins of the book. When I had
finished I flicked through the book and I found two particular attributes on
just about every page. They told me that the Saviour was merciful and that He always
fulfils His promises.
Trusting
the mercy has been an easy one but fulfilment of promises is much harder, for two
reasons…..1. we do not know HOW He will
fulfil His promise as our ways are not God’s ways (Isaiah 55:8) and 2. We do
not know WHEN the fulfilment will come as the Lord works on a different time schedule
for ‘all is as one day with God and time only is measured unto men’ (Alma 40:8).
When the
promised something is not happening, especially when you are in dire need, the
resistance steps in whispering doubts. I have been there, I know. Instead of
stepping up my faith in the face of resistance, my faith has wavered through
questions such as: do I really know Him? Do I really trust Him? Does He really
love me? Does he want the best for me? Well, yes that last one could go either
way. He always wants the best for you and you might not know how that best is
going to play out in the fulfilment of his promise. Another consideration is
that His priority is our eternal ‘best’ opposed to the ‘best’ here and now.
I have a
testimony that the strength of our faith indeed brings about rewards from
heaven. When I was going through my divorce some years ago, I was in terrible
emotional pain. It felt like it was going to rip my chest open. That was the
time I delved into the scriptures and studied about the Atonement because I was
convinced that only God could take that pain away.
For weeks I
prayed ‘through my faith in Jesus Christ and the power of the Atonement’ for a
healing of my broken heart. Every time I experienced a wave of pain throughout
the day, I would utter the same prayer calling upon the power of the Atonement
to heal me. Never once did I think it could not happen or that it would not happen.
My faith was infallible despite the unrelenting pain. I persisted and persisted and after some weeks
the pain was gone. All my negative emotions towards my ex-husband disappeared
and I was able to embrace him and his new life and move on with mine.
Some years
ago I was going through a difficult time and as I was studying the scriptures one
day, looking for answers, into my mind came a voice which said: “You were
fearless in your pre-mortality.” I was
rather stunned and answered: “It was easy then. Here it is harder because I
have to walk by faith.” The voice came back: “Nevertheless, this is what is
needful. This is why you are here. You cannot become gods without faith which creates
reality.”
- CATHRYNE ALLEN
“If there is
an imagery upon which I would focus, it is two scriptures from the Book of
Mormon. The one in which we are reminded that Jesus himself is the gate keeper
and that ‘he employeth no servant there’ (2 Nephi 9:41).
“I will tell
you….out of the conviction of my soul….what I think the major reason is (why he
‘employeth no servant there’), as contained in another Book of Mormon scripture
which says He waits for you ‘with open arms’ (Mormon 6:17). That’s why He’s there!
“He waits for
you with open arms. That imagery is too powerful to brush aside….It is imagery
that should work itself into the very center core of one’s mind – a rendezvous
impending, a moment in time and space, the likes of which there is none other.
And that rendezvous is a reality. I certify that to you. He does wait for us
with open arms, because His love for us is perfect.”
-
Neal A. Maxwell, But A Few Days, p
7
I have no life but this,
To know the scope of You.
I have no wish but this,
To feel that You want this too.
I have no life but this,
To know Thy approving glance;
To kneel at Thy feet,
To know there is a chance.
I have no life but this
To follow the path to Thy throne
To be greeted with a holy kiss,
And know the reality of such bliss.
- CATHRYNE ALLEN
“I fear that some members of the Lord’s Church
live far beneath their privileges with regard to the gift of the Holy Ghost.
Some are distracted by the things of the world that block out the influence of
the Holy Ghost, preventing them from recognizing spiritual promptings. This is
a noisy and busy world that we live in.
Remember that being busy is not necessarily being spiritual. If we are not
careful, the things of this world can crowd out the things of the Spirit.
“Some are spiritually deadened and past feeling
because of their choices to commit sin. Others simply hover in spiritual
complacency with no desire to rise above themselves and commune with the
Infinite. If they would open their hearts to the refining influence of this
unspeakable gift of the Holy Ghost, a glorious new spiritual dimension would
come to light.
“Their eyes would gaze upon a vista scarcely
imaginable. They could know for themselves things of the Spirit that are
choice, precious, and capable of enlarging the soul, expanding the mind, and
filling the heart with inexpressible joy.”
-
Elder
Joseph B. Wirthlin (1917-2008), The
Unspeakable Gift, GC April 2003
How silently, how diligently
You work for the salvation of men.
Your witness of my life
Written in your heart as with a holy pen.
When face to face one day we meet
I will kneel at your holy feet.
-
CATHRYNE
ALLEN
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
ON CHILDREN:
And a woman
who held a babe against her bosom said, Speak to us of Children. And he said:
Your
children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s
longing for itself. They come through you but not from you, and though they are
with you, yet they belong not to you.
You may
give them your love but not your thoughts, for they have their own thoughts.
You may
house their bodies but not their souls, for their souls dwell in the house of
tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may
strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you. For life goes not
backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the
bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth. The archer sees
the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that
His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your
bending in the Archer’s hand be for gladness; for even as He loves the arrow
that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.
-
Kahlil
Gibran, The Prophet – A Timeless Masterpiece
Come
to me, O ye children!
For
I hear you at your play,
And
the questions that perplexed me
Have
vanished quite away.
Ye
open the eastern windows,
That
look towards the sun,
Where
thoughts are singing swallows
And
the brooks of morning run.
In your
hearts are the birds and the sunshine,
In
your thoughts the brooklet’s flow,
But
in mine is the wind of Autumn
And
the first fall of the snow.
Ah!
What would the world be to us
If
the children were no more?
We
should dread the desert behind us
Worse
than the dark before.
What
the leaves are to the forest,
With
light and air for food,
Ere
their sweet and tender juices
Have
been hardened into wood –
That
to the world are children;
Through
them it feels the glow
Of
a brighter and sunnier climate
That
reaches the trunks below.
Come
to me, O ye children!
And
whisper in my ear
What
the birds and the winds are singing
In
your sunny atmosphere.
For
what are all our contrivings,
And
the wisdom of our books,
When
compared with your caresses,
And
the gladness of your looks?
Ye
are better than all the ballads
That
ever were sung or said;
For
ye are living poems,
And
all the rest are dead.
-
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Some days,
Father, I cannot bear,
The absence of
Your touch.
I cannot wait
for Your embrace
That I have
missed so very much.
In this abyss
of worldly darkness
I stumble but
I fall into the arms of Him
Who lifts me
higher than I can go.
I fly to You,
Father, on my wings of faith,
I sail through
stormy skies,
Seeking for
Thy face.
Look Father,
no hands!
Only trust in
these strong arms
Of my
Saviour’s loving grace.
-
CATHRYNE ALLEN
For years
now I have tried to understand fully the necessity for suffering in mortality.
From time to time different insights and portions of understanding have been
given to me but recently I received what I consider an adequate and favourable
theory of the same.
What came
to me first is the reason for our lack of understanding of this subject. It is
simply this: it is easy not to understand the here and now because we cannot
see beyond this life to the rewards of the splendour of eternity and our
eternal place within it.
There are three
things I am very convinced of and the first is this. We could see the reward in
our pre-earth life and we chose which level of the splendour we wanted to live in for all eons of time. In other
words, we chose there and then where we wanted to end up.
The second
is that not everyone wanted godhood. We could see it when we made the choice
but we could also see the responsibility of such a state of being and the high
price attached to it. Some of us were more spiritually inclined than others and
as such we sought for higher spiritual levels of intelligence and power that
godhood could give us.
The third
is this. Since we are not here to choose our eternal destiny, we are here to
prove ourselves worthy of the choice we have already made. All kingdoms are
kingdoms of glory and they all have degrees of splendour of eternity.
And here is the wonder of eternity. The
telestial kingdom, being the lowest, is a kingdom of glory that passes all
understanding even though it is a kingdom where murderers, rapists, liars, adulterers
and all manner of wicked people will go (D&C 76:89). It is also worth
noticing that the inhabitants of only this kingdom will be as innumerable as
the sand of the seashore (v 109). This is the kingdom for those who sought the
ease and glory of earthly life. This is the kingdom that comes with the lowest
price. But a price has to be paid even for this kingdom…..the souls who will
inherit it will pass through hell to earn their place therein. This is outer
darkness where they suffer torments of hell until their resurrection day
following the Millenium (Alma 40:11-14; D&C 76:103-106; see also Bruce R.
McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, pp 349-50)
And now the
necessity for suffering. This life offers us something valuable that helps us
prove we deserve the outcome we have chosen: our moral agency. Suffering reveals
to us our true nature and refines within us the attributes needed through the
exercise of our agency to become worthy of the splendour of our eternal reward.
If we wanted godhood, our agency has to develop within us a godly character.
Water meets its own level.
For years I
have felt my life has been unjust. I have had to live through some major trials
and the suffering has been acute. This week I made a list of all the growth I
have experienced throughout my life and the qualities I have acquired through
my choices to endure, trust, overcome, forgive…..qualities like compassion,
love and tolerance. I have learnt mercy and even humility as I was brought down
to the dust of the earth. One day I will kneel at the throne of my God and present
these gifts as the greatest treasures I have come to own.
Herein is
the mercy of two Gods: God the Father who sacrificed His best child for the lowest
of His children, and God the Son who willingly submitted to that sacrifice.
Honour and glory be theirs forever for the joy that awaits us…..
"In my Father's house are many mansions....I go to prepare a place for you." (John 14:2)
I pledged my life into thy hands
When by example you showed me how;
I promised my trials to endure
When I was with You and do so even
now.
You dried my tears when I barely
coped
And carried me when I could walk no
more;
You fed me truths I needed to know
And nurtured my flight into the
unknown.
As I promised to obey,
You promised we’d never part;
I remember, I remember
And carry it all
In the shadow of my heart.
- CATHRYNE ALLEN
There is nothing that excites me more than
coming across someone in scripture who loved the God of Israel. One such man
was King Josiah of the Kingdom of Judah. You might have gathered by now that
there weren’t many kings of Israel like him. He stole my heart the year I
discovered him in the Old Testament.
Before we can appreciate Josiah, it’s
imperative to look at his predecessors. Josiah’s grandfather was Manasseh who
ascended the throne of Judah at the age of twelve. He reigned for fifty years
and became the most loathed and cursed king in the history of Judah.
Manasseh exceeded the idolatry of his
predecessors by adding a third form of worship: devotion to the heavenly bodies
and constellations. Remnants of this worship are seen today in astrology (The
Old Testament Student Manual Book 2 p 213). If you live by your horoscope, give
this some thought…..
Not only did Manasseh exceed the idolatry of
his forefathers, he defiled the temple and the whole country out of contempt for
God and barbarously slew all the righteous Hebrew men, ‘ till Jerusalem was
overflown with blood’ (Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, bk 10, chap 3,
par 3)
This evil king repented when he was in
affliction, after the king of Assyria captured him and took him to Babylon. He
pleaded with the Lord who had mercy on him and brought him back to Jerusalem. Upon
his return Manasseh cleaned house by putting away all the idols out of the
temple and the country but it was too little too late. Idolatry was so
engrained in his people by then that they continued to worship in ‘high places’
and when his son Amon succeeded him, he returned the people to full blown idolatry
again (2 Chronicles 33:10-22). This is a
perfect example of how much damage one man can do to a whole nation.
Enter Josiah. He was only eight years old when
he began his 31 year reign. This was a man who as a child watched babies scarified
to the god of fire, Moloch. A man who in adulthood became highly troubled by
the spiritual decay of the kingdom he inherited. The truth had been lost and the covenant between
Israel and Jehovah forgotten…..until he set about repairing the temple and ‘the
book of the law’ was found (2 Kings 22:8-11). Some historians have suggested
this book was Deuteronomy and some have concluded it was the entire Pentateuch
(the first five books of the Bible written by Moses).
When the book of the law was read to Josiah, he realized how far Israel had strayed from
the one true and living God and in his grief he tore the clothes on his body (2
Kings 22:11). Josiah cleaned the land of idolatry even more scrupulously than Manasseh
but he could not bring about a thorough conversion of the people. Chapter 23 of
2 Kings outlines his detailed efforts of cleansing the insidious practice of
idol worship but he could not undo the damage his grandfather Manasseh had done.
Not even by putting his people under the covenant could he uproot the deep
inward apostasy of the people. (2 Kings 23:26)
History records there was no king like Josiah
before or after him. That he loved the Lord with all his heart, his soul and
with all his might (2 Kings 23:25).
This is the lesson we can learn from Josiah. No
matter what family we come from, what our upbringing was like and who raised
us, we still have a choice to forge our own path in the world. No habit, false
belief, addiction or immoral behaviour of those around us has to have power
over us. We are in charge of our own destiny and have the ability to say: ‘this
ends with me’.
The God of Israel saw Josiah’s grief when he
heard the book of the law and when he tore his clothing. He recognized his
sincerely and his desire for obedience and his efforts to turn the tide. He
promised him that he will be ‘gathered unto his fathers and into his grave in
peace’ so that he will not see all the evil which He would bring upon Jerusalem
to punish the people for their disobedience (2 Kings 22,19-20). Josiah died at age 39 in the Valley of
Megiddo at the hands of the king of Egypt (2 Kings 23:29). And all Judah and
Jerusalem mourned for him (2 Chronicles 35:24)
- CATHRYNE ALLEN
(Art by AI)
As Golgotha raged and tore
Your flesh without mercy
The Garden sprang anew,
As from every drop You spilt
New flowers came into bloom.
How pitiful the cross that claimed You
Not knowing it sent a God to a
Darkened tomb!
-
Cathryne
Allen
“Each of us
lives on a kind of spiritual credit. One day the account will be closed, a
settlement demanded. However casually we may view it now, when that day comes
and the foreclosure is imminent, we will look around in restless agony for
someone, anyone, to help us….
“Unless there
is a mediator, unless we have a friend, the full weight of justice untampered,
unsympathetic, must, positively must, fall on us. The full recompense for every
transgression, however minor or however deep, will be exacted from us to the
uttermost farthing.
“But know
this: Truth, glorious trust, proclaims there is such a Mediator. ‘For there is
one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus’ (1 Timothy 2:5). Through Him mercy can be
fully extended to each of us without offending the eternal law of justice. This
truth is the very root of Christian doctrine.”
-
Boyd K. Packer, “The Mediator” General Conference April 1977
Like a bird in flight
My sins ascend to Thee;
Rising from the ashes of mortality,
They seek Thy love to set them free.
- Cathryne Allen
“On the night
of the greatest suffering the world has ever known or will ever know, He said, “Peace
I leave with you, my peace I give unto you….Let not your hearts be troubled,
neither let it be afraid.” (John 14:26-27)
“I submit to
you that may be one of the Saviour’s commandments that is, even in the hearts
of otherwise faithful Latter-day Saints, almost universally disobeyed; and yet
I wonder whether our resistance to this invitation could be anymore grievous to
the Lord’s merciful heart.
“I can tell
you this as a parent. As concerned as I would be if somewhere in their lives one
of my children were seriously troubled or unhappy or disobedient, I would be infinitely more devastated if I
felt that at such a time that child could not trust me to help, or should feel
his or her interest were unimportant to me or unsafe in my care.
“In that same
spirit, I am convinced that none of us can appreciate how deeply it wounds the
loving heart of the Saviour when He finds that His people do not feel confident
in His care or secure in His hands or trust in His commandments.”
-
Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, Created
For Greater Things, A Collection of Inspiring Quotes
You come to me to dispel the darkness
And embrace me in the splendour of Your
light.
Even in the midst of Your Godly moments
You attend to the needs of my feeble heart.
I give my all to You who are
My wings of protection,
The Saviour of my soul,
The path to my eternal home.
He is my Sovereign,
He is the king of all kings,
He is my wings of protection,
He is my everything.
-
Cathryne
Allen
“It was the custom for one fleeing for
his life in the desert to seek protection in the tent of a great sheik, crying
out, “Ana dakhiluka”, meaning ‘I am thy suppliant’, whereupon the host would
place the hem of his robe over the guest's shoulder and declare him under his
protection.
“In one instance in the Book of Mormon, we see Nephi
fleeing from an evil enemy that is pursuing him. In great danger, he prays the
Lord to give him an open road in the low way, to block his pursuers, and to
make them stumble. He comes to the Lord as a suppliant: ‘O Lord wilt thou
encircle me around in the robe of thy righteousness! O Lord, wilt thou make a
way for mine escape before mine enemies! (2 Nephi 4:33).
“In reply, according to the ancient custom, the Master
would place the hem of his robe protectively over the kneeling man’s shoulder
(kafata). This puts him under the Lord’s protection from all enemies. They
embrace in a close hug, as Arab chiefs still do: the Lord makes a place for him
(see Alma 5:24) and invites him to sit down beside him – they are at-one.
“This is the imagery of the Atonement – the embrace.
‘The Lord hath redeemed my soul from hell; I have beheld his glory, and I am
encircled about eternally in the arms of His love! (2 Nephi 1:15).
-
Hugh Nibley, “The Atonement of Jesus
Christ, Part 1” Ensign July 1990
Your saving grace
Has lifted me to Your cross
Becoming my mortal weakness’ greatest foe.
I now walk with You
In paths I dare not walk alone;
In the valley of shadow of death,
I rejoice to be Your own.
-
Cathryne
Allen
How
grateful to know Your voice
In
this world of utter despair
And
hear it echo
In
Your loving tender care.
How
fiercely You watch,
How
tenderly You care,
How
safe You make me feel
Knowing
You are ever there.
How
grateful I am to be in Your flock,
How
grateful to be in Your keep;
You
are my shepherd
And
I am Your sheep.
-
Cathryne Allen
God intends to consummate the great latter-day
work in five steps: 1. The literal gathering of Israel; 2. The restoration of
the Ten Lost Tribes; 3. The building of Zion (the New Jerusalem) upon the
American continent; 4. Christ’s personal reign upon the earth known as the
Millenium; and 5. The renewal of the earth in its paradisical glory. (see Hugh
Nibley, Approaching Zion, p 1-2)
We are currently engaged in the first step. The
gathering began in 1836 when Moses, the great lawgiver of Israel, appeared in
the Kirtland Temple to give Joseph Smith “the keys of the gathering of Israel
from the four parts of the earth” (D&C 110:11).
What exactly is ‘the gathering’. It is proclaiming
the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the nations of the earth for one reason: there is
none else beside Him through whom salvation can come. There is none else in heaven
above, or earth beneath or waters beneath the earth, nothing, nobody, nowhere,
beside Him there is no saviour, there is none other name given under heaven
save it be this Jesus Christ whereby man can be saved (Isaiah 43:10-11; 45,5,6,14,18,22;
46:9; Deut 4:35,39; 5:8; 1 kings 8:60, 2 Nephi 2:8; 25:20; 31:21; Moses 6:52; D&C
76:1)
To be gathered means to come into the fold of
Christ and be baptized in His name. It means that all who will receive their
salvation have to belong to the House of Israel, through Him who is the God of
Israel. The tribes of Israel are being gathered from every nation where the
Lord’s servants, under the direction of the Prophet of the Church, are able to
go. This gathering is happening in fulfillment of Jeremiah’s prophecy:
“Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the
Lord, that it shall no more be said, The Lord liveth, that brought up the
children of Israel out of the land of Egypt; But, the Lord liveth, that brought
up the children of Israel from the land of the north, and from all the lands
whither he had driven them….Behold, I will send for many fishers, saith the
Lord, and they shall fish them; and after will I send for many hunters, and
they shall hunt them from every mountain, and from every hill, and out of the
holes of the rocks….Hear the word of the Lord, O ye nations, and declare it in
the isles afar off, and say, He that scattered Israel will gather him, and keep
him, as a shepherd doth his flock.”
(Jeremiah 31:7,8,10-12)
As complete as was the scattering , so shall be
the gathering of ‘treacherous Judah’ and
‘backsliding Israel’ (Jeremiah 3:11):
“Though smitten of men, a large part of them gone from a knowledge of the
world, Israel are not lost unto their God. He knows whither they have been led
or driven; toward them His heart still yearns with paternal love…” (James
Talmage, Articles of Faith, p 328-9)
I know something of paternal love of Christ. After
I was baptized into the Church at the tender age of 18, I had a very
significant dream. In the dream, I was in a high rise building with my parents
who opposed my baptism. As we conversed, there arose some commotion on the
street below us. We hurried down to see the cause and as we reached our
destination a white matter akin to snow fell on top of us. We had to burrow our
way to the top. My parents never made it but I did. As I emerged I surveyed the
street and saw it covered everywhere with exquisite whiteness. When I turned to
my right I saw the Saviour coming towards me with His outstretched arms saying:
“Where are my children?” I knew from that moment that my baptism was my
re-birth and that through it, I belonged to Him.
When we are baptized we take upon ourselves the
name of Christ and become His spiritually begotten children (Mosiah 5:7-12). The
baptismal covenant instituted by Jesus himself during his ministry fulfilled
the law of Moses and opened the way of spiritual re-birth and salvation for all
by joining the House of Israel through baptism.
When the scattering of the Ten Tribes happened,
some members of these tribes were scattered throughout what we now know to be
Europe. My patriarchal blessing tells me I am a true Israelite by birth being
of ‘the seed of Abraham’. This is one of my most prized blessings of this life.
It makes me grateful for my Croatian roots because I am one of the sheep of the
House of Israel and I have come home to the Shepherd….
