FATHER'S CHARGE

 

Soul's Surrender by Greg Collins

Long ago,

When you lived in my arms

You wanted to fly

In the vast expanse of the skies.

I gifted you wings,

And promised I would

Teach you to fly.

Just remember, I am here, but

It is your turn now,

To rise.

 

-      Cathryne Allen 

MY EVERYTHING

 

Faithful and True by LDS Bookstore

I looked up to You

When in my beginning.

I saw Your strength,

Your care, Your undying love,

And I knew only You

Could make up for what

I alone could not do.

 

You are my Shepherd,

You are my King,

You are my Holy Grail,

You are my everything.

 

-      CATHRYNE ALLEN 

TREASURES IN HEAVEN

 

Book of Life by Chris Brazelton

“The Book of Mormon has much to say about earthly and heavenly treasures, in the same sense in which the newly found apocrypha do. Of course, the image is also found in the New Testament.

“The Book of Mormon prophets explain many references to heavenly treasures in the Bible. Helaman is fondest of treasures: “And even at this time, instead of laying up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where nothing doth corrupt….ye are heaping up for yourselves wrath against the day of judgment” (Helaman 8:25).

“This is the correct concept of what is meant by a treasure, it is a very common idea in the early apocrypha. We find in the many treasure passages that the treasure is the wisdom and knowledge we left behind us when we came down to this earth. In the premortal existence, we left our treasure in God’s treasury, in His keeping.

“There it is, and by our good works here we can add to it; more will be waiting for us when we go back….In the Jewish apocrypha, God orders, by his word, the lights in the heavenly height, and by the utterance of His mouth He opens the treasury, where the righteous have a store of good works preserved…..everything we add to our credit is being preserved in God’s treasury.”

-          Hugh Nibley, Temple and Cosmos, p 232-3

 

Your truth pierces my soul

And binds me to Your loving heart.

Your teaching moments

Find my hungry mind

And feed me like a bird in flight

Searching for a morsel

That gladdens its hungry heart.

Your mysteries are laid at my feet

And I, I come to you Father

Clutching these treasures

that are mine to keep.

- CATHRYEN ALLEN 

THE WISH

 

I look back on my upbringing years in Croatia during the 60s with great fondness. A large part of my gratitude goes to the Catholic Church for giving me my foundation of faith in God. I cannot separate my memories of my country from my Catholic upbringing. It was so much a part of my youth. I was the one in my family that attended Church services and confessions. It was an entire culture of my upbringing and all I knew of life.

At the end of the street we lived in was the cemetery with our local church. That cemetery with the church was the focal point of our neighbourhood. We had to walk through it to get to three other streets. In one of those streets was my school so the cemetery and the Church became my daily visit. School was divided into two shifts, the morning shift and the afternoon shift. The afternoon shift didn’t end until 6 pm. In winter, when the sun went down early, it was an interesting walk home….

I never looked at the cemetery with morbid attitude. I am a poet and I feel deeply. I knew graves with poetic and heart rendering prose on the gravestones. I knew where children were buried and I knew which graves were visited often. All Saints Day was one of my favourite times of the year. The cemetery came alive with visitors coming and going all day and at night the place was alight with candles. It was magical.

The cemetery was also our playground with luscious grass to configure the clouds in our minds and to simply get together with friends and play. This is where we smelled the first sign of spring with the violets and new flowers born after the snow had melted. It also heralded one of my favourite times of the year – Easter. Easter Sunday found us at Church with our baskets of food for the priest to bless. Christmas was another. Buying presents was not the custom I was ever familiar with. What I looked forward to the most was the nativity scene in our Church. Christmas was all about Jesus.

When my family moved to Australia in my early teens, my world changed. As I saw beyond my little Croatian town, my thinking and wondering went into overdrive. By the time I was 16, I was asking serious questions like, ‘what is the purpose of life?’ and  ‘why am I here on this planet?’ I realized that the Catholic Church did not have a lot of answers.

I found the answer to my purpose in life when I was 17 years old, in the doctrine of a church I had heard about, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It is called The Plan of Salvation. It blew me away with its simplicity and truthfulness. It taught me that I lived with God in pre-earth life as a spirit and that I was born into mortality to one day be resurrected to immortality and live with God again. And not just to live with Him but to become like Him, who is a resurrected, exalted God.

In this Church, I found Christ. He was no longer someone out of my reach that I believed died for me but a personal Saviour of my soul, with a kinship going back to the life I lived before. My association with Him deepened over the years. The more I learnt of Him, the more of an idol He became. I know I wanted to be like Him before I was even born because He was and is the path to my eternal existence.

I know who He is, He is ……the bread of life (John 6:31,51), the light of the world (8:12), the good shepherd (10:11,14), the resurrection and life (11:25), the way, the truth and the life (14:6). He is also the potter and we are the clay in His hands (Isaiah 64:8). He makes of us what we can never become on our own. He is the Master builder and the Master healer of our souls. He is our only hope of salvation and there is none else (Isaiah 43:10-11; 45:5,6,14,18,22; 46:9; Deut 4:35,39; 5:8; 1 Kings 8:60; D&C 76:1; 2 Nephi 25:20; 31:21; Moses 6:52)

I had a memory from my pre-earth life some time ago. I was sitting with the Saviour and He was saying to me: “I will save you and I will make up for everything.” When I cry my tears, it’s a memory to hold onto.

 

When in the realms of heaven

You asked me what in mortality

I wanted to be,

It was so easy, I said I wanted

To be like Thee.

 

You warned me of the suffering

That would have to equal in measure

To what you would suffer for me;

That my life would not be easy

But that You would

make up for everything.

 

Now I am here,

I fear the refiners’ fire of the kiln

When Your potter hands are moulding me

But I try to be the woman I was who said

She wanted to be like Thee.

 

Some days I want to change my wish

I am not worthy to bear my suffering,

But then I notice the chains

around my heart are broken,

and I remember:

You will make up for everything.

 

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art: Spring of Life by Chris Brazelton)

Chris Brazelton - Official Website

TO KNOW YOURSELF

 

“Why did the Lord ask such things of Abraham? Because, knowing what his future would be and that he would be the father of an innumerable posterity, He was determined to test him. God did not do this for His own sake for He knew by His foreknowledge what Abraham would do; but the purpose was to impress upon Abraham a lesson to enable him to attain unto knowledge that he could not obtain in any other way.

“That is why God tries all of us. It is not for his own knowledge for He knows all things beforehand. He knows all your lives and everything you will do. But He tries us for our own good that WE MAY KNOW OURSELVES; for it most important that a man should know himself.”

-          George Q. Cannon, (Gospel Truth, comp. Jerreld L. Newquist, 2 Vols [1974] 1:113)

I am beginning to see the truth of this. Just as God wanted Abraham to know what Abraham would do in the most severe of circumstances, he desires this for us too. We can only know what we will do if we are placed in a situation that requires our response. To know our commitment to God, we have to be asked to show it under adverse conditions.  To know our strength, we have to be asked to flex our muscles.

There are tests of faith where we have to reach back past our earthly lives and into our pre-mortal lives to discover who we truly are and have always been. Mortal life is a state of weakness. It’s also a state of inheritance of intergenerational habits and teachings we have be programmed to follow. That is not to say that because one of our parents was weak with something, we have to be weak too but sometimes breaking the cycle of weakness is a daunting task.

Many of us do not believe in ourselves. Either we have been taught to feel that way since birth or we have had a particularly adverse experience that has caused us to mistrust ourselves. The biggest disadvantage, however, is that we do not remember how brilliant we were before we came to this earth. Consider this thought:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure…it is our light, not our darkness, which most frightens us. You may ask yourself, “Who am I to be brilliant, talented and fabulous?”  Actually, who are you NOT to be? You were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within you. It is not just some of us…. It is all of us. And as we let our light shine, we unconsciously give others permission to do the same. “ (Marianne Williamson, “A Return To Love – Reflections on the Principles of A Course in Miracles”)

We of the second estate were brave enough to fight the Son of the Morning and his angels for our turn on earth and our eternal destiny (Revelation 12:7-9; D&C 76:25-26; Moses 4:1-4; Isaiah 14:12-15; Abraham 3:27-28). This is the strength and this is the power which we need to reach back for when we are tested to be proven worthy of that which we wanted before we were born –  eternal life with God – our eternal destiny.

Right now I am going through the testing ground I did not expect. I feel like God has put me in a jail and said to me: “You will not be able to do anything unaided. I will bring you down to the depths of humility and show you your weakness and your strength. I will make you lose the you that you have become in this mortal shell and I will reveal to you who you have always been, who you were when you were with Me. To get to know yourself, you have to lose yourself.”

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting,

The soul that rises with us, our life’s star,

Hath had elsewhere its setting

And cometh from afar;

Not in entire forgetfulness,

And not in utter nakedness

But trailing clouds of glory

Do we come from God, who is our home.

(William Wordsworth, Ode on Intimations of Immortality)

 

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art: Enlightenment by Judy Cooley)

Judy Cooley Art – Uplifting & Joyful LDS Paintings – Altus Fine Art

THE VEIL

 

I stood at the veil

As You were about to leave

Sorrowing that not all would believe.

 

I prayed for the Father’s power

To protect Your gentle heart

From the blow that might tear You apart.

 

I knew my soul You would save

And all Your promises You would fulfil.

I stood at the veil, unable to leave,

Holding Your crown for You to receive.

 

I stood and waited that fateful day

In awe of what You did to pave the way.

I could scarcely comprehend

Your godly enduring might

I stood at the veil and gave You my heart.

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Artist Unknown)

THE WISH

 

When in the realms of heaven

You asked me what in mortality

I wanted to be, it was so easy,

I said I wanted to be like Thee.

You warned me of the suffering 

That would have to be equal in measure

To what You would suffer for me;

That my life would not be easy

But that You would make up for everything.

Now I am here,

I fear the refiners' fire of the kiln

When Your potter hands are moulding me,

But I try to be the woman I was who said

She wanted to be like Thee.

Some days I want to change my wish

I am not worthy to bear my suffering,

But then I notice the chains around my heart

Are broken, and I remember:

You will make up for everything.

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art: Clay Full by Ron diCianni)

THE LOVE

 

“According to John Taylor, the Melchizedek Priesthood conferred upon Abraham “would be the means of introducing him into the presence of God” and “some of the greatest and most sublime truths that ever were made known to man……

“Since John Taylor’s day, a number of ancient sources have emerged that describe in striking detail an occasion when Abraham was indeed introduced into the presence of God in heaven, who taught him and showed him his posterity as they would exist through the ages.” (E. Douglas Clark, “The Blessings of Abraham” 143)

This ascension to God’s throne is not recorded in Genesis and Abraham does not mention it in his book in the Pearl of Great Price, but I have often wondered if this was the occasion when he was shown the stars of heaven and the pre-mortal life of man he speaks of therein.

The account of this ascension is amazing and too long to expound here but this is the tenderness of Christ I gleaned from the account of this event in Abraham’s life: “Rising from his throne, the Lord “revealed Himself to Abraham, and took him in His bosom” and “kissed him on his head, and He called him, Abraham my beloved”! (Sefer Yetzira 6:7 in Kaplan; see also Ginzberg, “Legends of the Jews”, 5:210 n.13)

“Jewish tradition insists that Abraham was the epitome of the love of God, and that Abraham summoned mankind to believe in God out of his own great love for Him” and served Him out of love by showing loving-kindness” (hesed) to mankind and thus ‘doing the same work as God – a pattern that would be followed by Joseph Smith, who “because of his love for his fellowmen, never missed an opportunity to preach the gospel” (Joseph B. Wirthlin, “The Example of Joseph Smith” in “The Prophet and His Work”, 92) – (E. Douglas Clark, “The Blessings of Abraham”, 100)

“The divine attribute of love “was incarnate in Abraham. Not by control or compulsion would Abraham change the world or win the hearts of mankind, but rather by the principles of righteousness and love upon which the rights of the priesthood are always based (see D&C 121:41-42)”  (ibid, p 101)

This love, this “hesed”, is what made Abraham the greatest patriarch of all time. It is because of this love that he was chosen to bless the nations of the earth through his posterity.

The Hebrew word “hesed” is difficult to render in English. It is usually translated as ‘steadfast love’. It is a covenant word that refers to the faithfulness or loyal love that binds two people together in covenant.

This love is motivated by an inner loyalty which arises out of the relationship itself and not by legal obligation. Such covenant love has the quality of constancy, firmness and steadfastness. It is a love you have for another that you would never break because of deep loyalty you feel towards them.

This is the love that Abraham had for Jehovah and Jehovah in turn had for him. I am rather certain that this love began when Abraham stood in the midst of the noble and great ones and was chosen before he was born, when  ‘the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy’ (Job 38:7).

This is when the covenant of ‘hesed’ was born for all of us. We covenanted to come to earth, to be proven, to be used as instruments of God to spread the truth and the love of God to all mankind. This is ‘hesed’, the eternal and undying love of God who had covenanted with us that we will have eternal life.

 

How can I contain You

In the chambers of my overflowing heart?

Your greatness, Your mercy, Your love,

Are far too vast.

 

All that I am, I give to you:

My heart, my soul, my all,

I lay at your feet forever more.

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art: Eternal Love for You by B. Laura Wilson)

INDOMITABLE ABRAHAM

 

Imagine being raised in a family where your parents had become entrenched in idolatry and believed in human sacrifice yet in your heart deeply burnt your testimony of the one true and living God. This was the childhood of a young man called Abraham from the land of Ur in the Chaldees (Abraham 1:1), what is now modern-day Iraq.

From the very beginning of his life, Abraham had an acute spiritual sensitivity to the reality of the one true and living God.  Consider these insights from his early life:

"At just three years of age, as one source has it, the boy already 'began to understand the nature of God', so that the next year he resisted when his grandfather tried to teach him to worship idols.  Nor could Abraham's father, despite long and persistent effort, persuade his son to revere the statues." (E. Douglas Clark, The Blessings of Abraham, Becoming A Zion People, p. 40)

"An ancient and widespread legend tells of bold action taken by the young Abraham.  The story is not found in the Bible, but it is the most oft-repeated Abrahamic narrative in the Qur'an, is found in numerous ancient Jewish sources, and was repeated by Brigham Young, John Taylor and Wilford Woodruff.  

“As recounted by Jewish sources, it began when the young Abraham found himself alone in a room full of idols….. The event was a major religious festival called by King Nimrod himself and was centred at Nimrod's pagan temple.  Abraham had been urged to attend by his father but declined to go and was instructed to stay behind to guard the idols.

When Abraham was all alone, he acted boldly and decisively.  Some sources report that 'the Spirit of God came upon him'.  As recounted by the Maaseh Avraham Avinu, 'He took an axe in his hand, and as he saw the idols of the king sitting, he said, 'The Eternal, He is God', and he 'pushed them off their thrones to the ground, and he smote them mightily…..' until 'all of them were broken'.  Then, placing 'the axe in the hand of the largest idol', Abraham left.

When his father and the king returned and discovered the wreckage, they were wroth.  'The king commanded that Abraham be brought before him.  And they brought him.  The king and his ministers said to him, 'Why did you shatter our gods?'  He said to them, 'I didn't break them, no.  Rather, the large one of them smashed them.  Don't you see that the axe is in his hand? And if you won't believe it, ask him and he will tell'.  And as the king heard his words, he became angry to the point of killing him."  (E. Douglas Clark, The Blessings of Abraham, Becoming A Zion People, p. 47)

And so the God of Abraham would not allow Abraham to forget Him and He would not allow him to forget who HE was. He would be with him always through this reminder: “When I organised all the intelligences, I saw there were noble and great ones, and I stood in the midst of them and chose my rulers and Abraham you were one of them. I will whisper it to you every minute of your mortal life so you will never forget me and you will never forget who YOU are.” (see Abraham 2:22,23)

We are likewise noble and great ones possessing the indomitable spirit of our father Abraham, ‘the father of the faithful’. God is whispering and we must never forget…..”The Eternal, He is God”.

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art: Clouds of Glory by Greg Sargent)

 

IN HIS FOOTSTEPS

 

Out of all the patriarchs of old, Abraham is by far my most favourite. Apart from his desire for the blessings of the priesthood, his amazing obedience and righteousness, and his willingness to sacrifice, all of which are highly admirable, there is one thing about him that stands out to me the most.

Through Abraham and his life, I have a witness that we cannot become like the Saviour unless we save at least one person, whether in this life or the next. I will use him here as an introduction to the patriarchs of the Old Testament through this amazing story that illustrates my point:

"....Abraham 'was sitting at the entrance of the tent as the day grew hot' (JPST Gen 18:2).  It was the hottest part of a very hot day, say the rabbis, with the sun beating down mercilessly.  As one writer recounts, 'Abraham sits in his tent door enjoying its grateful shade, and looking out on the plain of Mamre, from which the sun's fiery beams have driven men, birds and panting beasts to such shelter as rocks and trees and tents can afford'.

“Abraham, however, was not focused on himself and his discomfort, compounded by his recent circumcision, but was worrying for travellers who might need assistance on a day like that.  'Notwithstanding the intense heat and his own sickness he still sat there to invite any stray passer-by'.  

“When no one came, he sent his servant to go in search of anyone needing help, even though Abraham had planted trees for the benefit of travellers - rest stops along the way.  When the servant returned without success, Abraham determined to go himself.  It was then, says rabbinic tradition, that Abraham discovered the three travellers.

“Abraham might easily have remained seated, and simply directed a servant or subordinate to attend to these travelers. Or, says one writers, 'he may wait their approach, leaving them to solicit his hospitality.  Not he - Abraham arose and despite the scorching heat, and 'although he was in great pain from his wound, ran forward to meet them' and  'bowed himself towards the ground' (Gen. 18:2)." (E. Douglas Clark, The Blessings of Abraham, p. 172). 

It is then that he received the promise of Isaac, because of his regard for his fellowman.

Wherever Abraham went in his journeys he acquired souls to save. The more I have studied about his life, the more amazed I have become but not surprised that he became ‘the father of the faithful’. Abraham exemplifies all the patriarchs because their one mission in life was the salvation of souls:

“And God saw these souls that they were good, and he stood in the midst of them, and he said: These I will make my rulers; for he stood among those that were spirits, and he saw that they were good, and he said unto me: Abraham, thou art one of them; thou wast chosen before thou wast born.” (Abraham 3:23)

We might not rise to the status of Abraham or any of the patriarchs. We all have individualized responsibilities and directives in regards to saving others. It is the desire to save that matters the most. In my recent conversation with a friend, he disclosed to me the greatest level of that desire, that I have never even considered, when he told me that he has asked God to lay his inactive son’s sins on his shoulders. You cannot become Christ-like in a holier manner than this. 

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art: As I Have Loved You by B. Laura Wilson)

THE SCHOOL OF SPIRITS

 

I love the fact that the scriptures are a bridge across time and testify of the one and only truth in different dispensations. What Abraham was given to know almost 2,000 years B.C. about “the intelligences that were organised before the world was”, President Joseph Fielding Smith was also told in the year 1918 A.D. during his vision of the spirit world where he witnessed the presence of the ‘noble and great intelligences’ who were chosen as leaders in Christ’s Church (Abraham 3:22,23). After seeing the early leaders of this dispensation, his vision was expanded to others:

“I observed that they were also among the noble and great ones who were chosen in the beginning to be rulers in the Church of God. Even before they were born, they, with MANY OTHERS, received their first lessons in the world of spirits and were prepared to come forth in the due time of the Lord to labor in his vineyard for the salvation of the souls of men.” (D&C 138:55,56)

It is worthy to notice that the noble and great ones were not only the leaders but ‘many others’ who have been called to labour for the salvation of God’s children, whether in this life or the spirit world. Many of these spirits were faithful daughters of Mother Eve ‘who had lived through the ages and worshiped the true and living God’ (D&C 138:39). This is us.

No doubt our preparation was based on our commitment, our intelligence, our talents and the growth we had already acquired. Of this preparation, President Joseph Fielding Smith taught: “During the ages in which we dwelt in the pre-mortal state, we not only developed our various characteristics and showed our worthiness and ability, or the lack of it, but we were also where such progress could be observed.

“It was natural for our Father to discern and choose those who were most worthy and evaluate the talents of each individual. He knew not only what each of us COULD do, but also what each of us WOULD do when put to the test and when responsibility was given us”. (“The Way to Perfection” [1970], 50-51).

If you ever feel that you have nothing to offer to the Church, your circle of family and friends or even the world, don’t. We are a chain of humanity. Each of us contributes in different ways. Even if it is just to increase light in the world of darkness, by our goodness, our testimony, our service, our love. The Father places each one of His children in time and place where they can be of advantage and where their spirit can shine to be ‘the light of the world’ in whatever capacity is theirs (Matthew 5:14-16).

Elder Bruce R. McConkie taught that “the greatest and most important talent or capacity that any of the spirit children of the Father could gain is the talent of spirituality” (“A New Witness for the Articles of Faith” [1985] p 512). Why is this talent the most important? Because we need it to testify of God the Father and His Son and to labour for the salvation of souls.

If you love God and accept His Beloved Son as your Saviour, you are one of the noble and great ones…..your love for Him will spread throughout the world and touch people you might never even get to know.

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art: Christ by Farid Fadel)

HARD THINGS

 

Sometimes God asks us to do some hard things that not everyone else can do. Lehi’s colonisation of ancient America is an amazing proof of that. It shows that God puts in key positions those of His children who He knows would not let Him down. He certainly knew that a rich merchant Lehi would walk away from his riches and cross two oceans to get to where God wanted him to go.

The same with his son Nephi. I love how his father could depend on him when he asked him to return to Jerusalem to get the brass plates (1 Nephi 3:6). Nephi immediately affirmed that the Lord will provide the way for accomplishing such a hard task (1 Nephi 3:7). The whole story thereafter reads like Arabian Nights….

Obtaining the plates took three attempts. Nephi’s perseverance was admirable (1 Nephi 3:15). This is what stands out to me though. Nephi was an obedient person who had lived by the commandments his whole life. Then the Lord asks him to kill someone. I don’t know that I could ever do it knowing how incredibly evil killing is. But God knew that Nephi’s commitment to obedience was strong enough to do such a hard thing and He knew that he could depend on him (1 Nephi 4:17,18).

David slew Goliath in the same manner by cutting off his head, without blinking, and he became a man of war but I don’t recall Nephi killing anyone else for the rest of his life. It was clearly not in his disposition to destroy life. But obedience was.

God knows us incredibly well and this is how: “During the ages in which we lived in the pre-mortal state, we not only developed our various characteristics and showed our worthiness and ability, or the lack of it, but we were also where such progress could be observed…..it was natural for our Father to discern and choose those who were most worthy and evaluate the talents of each individual. He knew not only what each of us COULD do, but also what each of us WOULD do when put to the test and when responsibility was given us.” (President Joseph Fielding Smith, “The Way to Perfection” [1970], 50-51)

The greatest example of this concept is of course the Saviour. The Atonement He performed in mortality was in actual fact just a formality. We could actually draw upon its blessings and power in pre-existence as if it had already happened. Hence, we could be born innocent as the Atonement of Christ also covered our pre-mortal sins. (See Tad Callister, “The Infinite Atonement” p 85). The Father knew that His Son could do it and would do it. And so did we…..hence our vote.

We might not be the Saviour, Nephi or Joseph Smith but we just need to be strong enough to do whatever it is the Father is requiring of us and one day we will find out who we really are and we will be amazed…..

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art by Liz Lemon Swindle)

THE AGE OF THE WARRIOR

 

I am pretty sure that I was very converted to the Plan of Salvation in my pre-mortal life. In fact, I suspect I thought the warrior spirit within me was going to come here and set the world on fire. Instead, life brought me down to the depths of humility. It was something I needed to break through the brick veneer of my idealistic nature.

Pre-earth life and mortality is very much like pregnancy and the baby….when you’re pregnant you believe you will be the ideal mother skipping through the tulips of an ideal life with your perfect children but then the baby comes and shocks you into reality.

Lehi claimed that if Adam and Eve had stayed in the Garden of Eden and had had no children  ‘they would have remained in a state of innocence, having no joy, for they knew no misery’ (2 Nephi 2:23). Notice he said that having children gives you knowledge of misery. Sometimes, I think I missed the memo about the misery part and focused only on the joy that mortality would eventually bring. That’s the idealist that I am.

Sister Marie Hafen explained this well: “As I lay there in my hospital bed holding that beautiful little boy in my arms, his reddish hair already hinting at his temperament, I thought, “Nothing could be more wonderful than this”…..

“The day after the baby was born, I was cuddling him happily in my hospital room when my doctor came in. He was my uncle and quite a salty character. He looked at us and said cheerily, “How does it feel to have the easiest part over with?”  “Easiest part?” I asked. “Why sure”, he replied, “It’s the next twenty years that are going to be tough.” (Bruce C. Hafen, “The Broken Heart” p 69)

We are going through the twenty years of bringing up the baby. Sometimes the challenges and trials are overwhelming. We are not just charged with responsibility of survival and our salvation but the survival of the entire entity of the House of Israel. We are the builders of the Millenial future of this earth.

Now more than ever the Saviour needs warriors to combat the subtle and not so subtle evil that is striving to envelop the entire human family. I see many people in the Church here in Australia leaving, Wards and Stakes being lost. We are being lulled into believing that all is well in Zion (2 Nephi 28:21). Satan’s greatest propaganda of this dispensation….

It is time to put the baby down for a nap and dust off that armour……

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art: Put On the Armour of God by Celestial Heritage)

FULNESS OF JOY

 

When the Saviour was still with His disciples, they asked Him of the signs of His second coming. One might wonder why they would be so anxious to know that, seeing so much time would transpire between the meridian of time and the last days. Herein is the actual answer. They knew it would be a long time and that they would anxiously await the day of Redemption, for one reason: they would look ‘upon the long absence of their spirits from their bodies’ as a ‘bondage’ (D&C 45:17).

The evidence of this truth is recorded in Section 138 of the Doctrine and Covenants which describes the jubilation of the righteous in the spirit world when the Saviour came to them following His death ‘declaring liberty to the captives who had been faithful’ from the chains of death, ‘for the dead had looked upon the long absence of their spirits from their bodies as a ‘bondage’ (v 18).

Years ago I read one General Authority saying that we were so eager to come to earth that we were willing to accept lame, infirm, handicapped and even dysfunctional bodies. It puzzled me terribly because I had never looked upon my body as a great blessing.

At the time I presumed that we understood possessing a body only theoretically but not experientially, that we didn’t really know what it is like to have a body because we had never had one before. It was theory vs reality, like a woman who longed for a child ignorantly, not knowing what giving birth is really like.

So why would we look upon the absence of our bodies as bondage once we have experienced earth life with all its pains and sorrows, most of which are due to having a ‘corruptible’ body subject to illness and discomfort, a body which is ‘subject to the power of the Devil, and is under the mighty influence of that fallen nature that is of the earth’ (David A. Bednar, “Ye Are the Temple of God”, Ensign Sept 2001). This is why:

“When we go out of this life, leave this body, we will desire to do many things we cannot do at all without the body. We will be seriously handicapped and we will long for the body; we will pray for early reunion with our bodies. We will know then what advantage it is to have a body.

“Then every man and woman who is putting off until the next life the task of correcting and overcoming the weakness of the flesh are sentencing themselves to years of bondage, for no man or woman will come forth in the Resurrection until he has completed his work, until he has overcome, until he has done as much as he can do. (Melving J. Ballard, “Crusade for Righteousness, p 213).

A sobering thought, but this is the real reason. We are told that those who awaited the day of Resurrection in the spirit world, awaited it with eagerness ‘that they might receive a fulness of joy’ (D&C 138:17).

Think of all the pain and suffering of this life and contrast that to the perfect happiness we saw our heavenly parents in possession of before we were born. We wanted that……and we wanted this:

“The body that has been given to us was for the purpose of allowing the spirit to exalt itself to a nobler condition.”  (Melvin J. Ballard, “Crusade for Righteousness, p 12)

And so ‘the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy’ when the Saviour of our souls ‘laid the foundations of the earth’ (Job 38:4,7)…..and all glory and honour be to His name!!!  Forever and ever…...

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art: World by Greg Olsen)