JOURNEY TO HIS THRONE

 

The Path by Eva Koleva Timothy

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 

LOVE NOTES

 

That I May Heal You by B. Laura Wilson

I wish I could be grateful

For every fallen tear

And accept my trials

Without a trace of fear.

But what would life be

Without the love notes sent

From heaven’s gilded gates

And written by His pen.

 

-     Cathryne Allen 

TO RESIDE IN YOUR HEART

 

In the Shadow of Your Wings by Daniel Gerhartz

 

I long to reside in Your presence;

To never know sadness

Or the wretched heat of my tears.

I know I will be safe there

Where fears cannot find me

And trials cannot scar me.

I know there will be safety

In the shadow of Your wings

My burdens You will lift

And wipe away my sins.

 

-     CATHRYNE ALLEN 

THE TEARS HE WEEPS

 

Sorrow by Julia-Aurora on DeviantArt

Angels are near me

They want to take me home

To silence my tears

That so often fall.

 

They want me to see You

Grieving beyond the veil

To make it known

You can feel my pain.

 

They whisper to tell me

But my grief is too deep

And I cannot hear

all the words they speak.

 

When a moment of light

Breaks deep in my heart

They tell me of tears You weep 

while we are apart.

 

-       CATHRYNE ALLEN

(Artist Unknown)

TO BE LIKE HIM

 

Divine Faith by Greg Collins

In the beginning,

When the worlds came to be

I created everything needful

For you to become like Me.

 

I planned, I considered,

I knew each of you separately,

And I hoped against hope

You would want to become like Me.

 

Now I hear each plea

And answer it carefully,

Leading you gently to

Your own Gethsemane,

To become like Me.

 

-       Cathryne Allen 

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

BORROWED LIGHT

 

“Let me say to you, that many of you will see the time when you will have all the trouble, trial and persecution that you can stand ,and plenty of opportunities to show that you are true to God and His work. This Church has before it many close places through which it will have to pass before the work of God is crowned with victory.

“To meet the difficulties that are coming, it will be necessary for you to have a knowledge of the truth of this work for yourselves. The difficulties will be of such a character that the man or woman who does not possess this personal knowledge or witness will fall.

“If you have not got the testimony, live right and call upon the Lord and cease not till you obtain it. If you do not, you will not stand. Remember these sayings, for many of you will live to see them fulfilled.

“The time will come when no man nor woman will be able to endure on borrowed light. Each will have to be guided by the light within himself. If you do not have it, how can you stand?”

-          “Life of Heber C. Kimball” p 446,449-50

 

I would rather be a vessel in Your hand

Than a crowned king on gilded throne;

I would rather be a bird in flight

Without a shelter to keep me warm;

I would rather cross the oceans

And go where you would want me to go

Than sit contented never knowing

the trail that leads me home.

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art: At The Helm by Danny Hahlbohm)

GLORIOUS GRACE

 

Some of my regular readers will know that I have been in acute pain for almost two years. The lessons I have learnt in that time have come deep and fast. For that alone my suffering has been worth it.

The doctors I consulted outlined the medical path which would end in surgery. I didn’t want to get to that point and over the counter pain medication was not doing much. Being heavily invested in scriptures, and having been impressed with healings in Jesus’ day, I decided that I would also be healed.

Even though I have not seen any miraculous healings in the Church, I reasoned we have the priesthood and there are many scriptures that speak of healing in our dispensation (D&C 35:8,9; 42:48-51). I became perplexed that we, the Church members rely more on the medical profession than we do on the priesthood and concluded that most of us lacked faith to be healed and I was going to be different. I fasted for three days and asked my ministering brother to heal me. The blessing came but without a healing. I had five subsequent priesthood blessings over time and no healing. I concluded that none of the brethren had the courage to say: “rise up and walk” (Acts 3:6).

From there I decided to appeal to God to heal me himself. I was certain that we had the right to be healed just like people of the past and one day I would wake up without pain. Months went by and no healing and I was getting worse but I kept persisting thinking all I needed was the faith of the Brother of Jared…..I was sure I did not need to go down the medical path.

When I started questioning God and His mercy for me then a certain scripture came to me with incredible force: “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.” (Proverbs 3:5). I knew straight away that I had mis-understood. With that realisation came the proper understanding in two parts.

The first was that the miracles of the past had a specific purpose for that time and that today we cannot be ‘a Church of miracles’ as some evangelical ministries claim today. If we were, people would flock to the Church exclusively for this purpose and not for the eternal truths and salvation the Church represents. Even in His day, Jesus admonished some who were healed to ‘tell no man’ (Matthew 8:4; 9:30) and rebuked some for coming to Him for this purpose alone.

The second was about grace which came to me in the form of another scripture: “it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do.” (2 Nephi 25:23). I understood in that moment that I had not done all that I “could do” by seeking all the available help and understanding of my condition. I didn’t want to put in any of the work needed on my part. I wanted the magic wand.

The second part was the most important lesson of all. All that I was taught was not really about miracles or healing. God merely used this stage of my life to teach me about grace for one reason….He wanted me to remember on my darkest days when mortal exhaustion of pain sets in and I am tempted to distrust my power of endurance, that grace will only secure my salvation in the end ‘after all I can do’…….this was about enduring to the end….no matter what….at all cost.

I still believe in miracles because I believe in the God of miracles who is the same yesterday, today and forever and ‘ceaseth not to be God’….(Mormon 9:8-10,19)

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art: Reflections of Grace by Ivan Guaderrama)

THE WAITING ROOM

 

“God can provide miracles instantaneously, but sooner or later we learn that the times and seasons of our mortal journey are His and His alone to direct. He administers that calendar to every one of us individually. For every infirm man healed instantly, as he waits to enter the Pool of Bethesda, someone else will spend 40 years in the desert waiting to enter the promised land.

“For every Nephi and Lehi divinely protected by an encircling flame of fire for their faith, we have an Abinadi burned at a stake of flaming fire for his. And we remember that the same Elijah who in an instant called down fire from heaven to bear witness against the priests of Baal is the same Elijah who endured a period when there was no rain for years…one’s life cannot be both faith-filled and stress-free. It simply will not work…..

“Christianity is comforting, but it is often not comfortable. The path to holiness and happiness here and hereafter is a long and sometimes rocky one. It takes time and tenacity to walk it…..

“The point is that faith means trusting God in good times and bad, even if that includes some suffering until we see His arm revealed in our behalf. That can be difficult in our modern world when many have come to believe that the highest good in life is to avoid all suffering, that no one should ever anguish over anything. But that belief will never lead us to “the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.”

-          Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, “Waiting On the Lord” GC October 2020

 

You tell me I must

stay and conquer

Like You conquered

Your turbulent sea;

I understand,

But oh how I long to see

The shores of eternity.

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art: Deep Calls to Deep by Aeron Brown)

MORTALITY

 

"On my way to visit the Jameses the other evening, I saw a wheat field that appeared to be greener and taller than the others. Thinking about it for a while, I concluded that occasionally some loving farmer drives over the field with his tractor and dumps manure all over it. I thought, "My, it's just like life. Here we are minding our own business, growing our little hearts out. We're really quite green, somewhat productive and very sincere. When out of the blue, life deals us a dirty one, and we're up to our eyebrows in manure. We, of course, conclude that life as we have known it has just ended and will never be the same again. But one day, when the smell and the shock are gone we find ourselves greener and more productive than we have ever been! Unfortunately, no matter how often we go through these growing experiences, we are never able to appreciate the sound of the tractor or the smell of the manure."

- Harold W. Wood

 

My mortality spreads before me day and night,

I wince at bearing this heavy load.

I stumble and I fall,

The darkness seeking to swallow me whole.

I know He waits at heaven’s gate

Till I have learnt to walk the rough domain;

I will hurry, I will run

I will grasp the heaven’s hand

That will lift me to His arms

Forever there to remain.

 

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art by Ivan Guaderrama)

THE DESCENT

 

“Christ’s Atonement was a descent into the seemingly “bottomless pit” of human agony. He took upon himself the sins of the most wretched of all sinners; he descended beneath the cruelest tortures devised by man. His downward journey encompassed the transgressions of those who ignorantly sinned; it incorporated that quantum of suffering unrelated to spiritual error, but nonetheless viably acute in stinging proportions – the agony of loneliness, the pain of inadequacy, the suffering of infirmities and sickness. In the course of His divine descent He was assaulted with every temptation inflicted on the human race……“He descended below all things” (D&C 88:6).”  (Tad R. Callister, “The Infinite Atonement” p 104,5)

If you can find yourself somewhere in that bottomless pit of human agony herein described, don’t despair. There is someone who has met you there and taken upon himself all your suffering. I bear my witness of this truth.

My first major trial lasted 11 years and when it was over I felt shattered and hanging by a thread. This is when I learnt what the Saviour can do through the power of His Atonement. I knew only He could deliver me from the pain I was in and I sought to make the Atonement active in my life. I affirmed my faith in Jesus Christ and asked for its healing power many times during the day. The healing came in such magnitude as I had not expected. It grounded me in my faith of Him as if I was nailed with the spikes of the cross.

During my second major trial, which lasted 20 years, the Atonement of Christ remained active in my life to ensure my survival. Time and time again, He lifted me out of that pit to keep me going. When it was finished, I was given the promise of eternal life. I began to see this earthly life as insignificant in comparison and came to understand what Paul meant when he said if we have faith regarding this life only, we will be of all men most miserable (1 Cor 5:19). My focus on what is yet to come was born.

This time, in my third major trial, I have noticed the power of the Atonement active in my life again differently. I have recognised what it is making of me. Last week, in my extremity, I finally relinquished control and was able to say with heartfelt commitment and all the energy of my soul: “Thy will be done”. No pleading for relief, no pleading for a healing, no pleading for mercy, no battles, just surrender…..just, “Thy will be done”. It was a peace I have never known before.

I prayed in faith

That you would save me

From the river of my tears.

 

You took my soul and rescued me

 And promised I’ll be more than I could be

If I look toward eternity.

 

I look to You in every thought

And surrender all my fears;

Your sacred promise like a flame

Locked in my heart these many years.

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art: Peace to Your Heart by Greg Collins)

COMPASSION

 

Whenever I come across someone who seeks to show compassion by benign band-aids we use in the Church, I immediately recognise that this person has not suffered yet.

The familiar band-aids are: 1. We voted for this in our pre-earth life and; 2. We are here to learn and to grow. As if these two magical sentences can make everything better. I find it offensive when someone tells me this which to my mind suggests that they consider me less spiritually astute than I am.

Some of us experience sorrow which can be a passing phase and its impact can lessen to the point where equilibrium can eventually be regained.

Suffering on the other hand can last a much longer time and can leave life- long scars. You see so much of it in the world through abuse, sickness and oppression. The effects of these are so deeply rooted that only those who have suffered the same can understand.

Suffering at its most acute can be through bad mental or physical health. It reminds me of Job. After God took away from him all that he had to prove that he would stay faithful to Him, Satan was quick to point out to God that a man can lose everything and survive if he can keep his life, but afflict him personally through his body and he will curse God to His face (Job 2:4,5).

And so Job was afflicted physically beyond his wildest imagination and he wished he had never been born (Job 3:3). That’s suffering….when you are in so much pain that you struggle with a will to keep living. The reconciliation between his faith in God and his reality took Job to hell and back. That’s suffering. Along the path of such reconciliation one can encounter soul wrenching guilt, anger, bitterness and self-doubt. That’s suffering.

I do not believe we came here to ‘learn and to grow’. My personal belief is that we came here with more knowledge than we can ever acquire in this life. We were schooled and tutored extensively in all matters before we came here (D&C 138:56). The experiences we suffer here just awaken our eternal wisdom we brought with us. Hence our identity as ‘intelligences’ (Abraham 3:22). This is my theory and understanding.

According to my knowledge, there is nowhere in the scriptures that it tells us we came here to learn and to grow. The phrase almost suggests that we have been sent here to kindergarten, which I believe we graduated form long ago. Maybe to add upon the great knowledge we already possess…What the scriptures do tell us is that we came here to be tried and tested (Abraham 3:25). It is the passing of the test that progresses us to salvation.

The way we can show another compassion is by validating the hell they are passing through. Acknowledge that life is hard and what they are feeling is normal. The worst thing we can do is recount our blessings and our recognition of the positive because this only induces guilt in the other person. We don’t know what it is like to live in their skin but there is one who does:

“….and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities.”  (Alma 7:12)

That is something to celebrate this Christmas.

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art: Gentle Healer by Greg Olsen)

THE LESSONS

 

I wrote yesterday about the practical knowledge of mortality that is essential for us in our rise to godhood. We acquire this knowledge through lessons we are given that provide an opportunity for acquisition of godly attributes and skills.

Every single quality I desired in life and asked for was not freely given. What was given was a practical lesson in difficulties I had to go through to acquire the skill I wanted. Indeed, just knowledge of it could not develop a godly character. It’s a matter of doing. I have wondered which of my lessons I didn’t need and the answer is I needed all of them. I have likewise asked myself what lessons I missed that had to be repeated because I was at the time unyielding.

I think of the Saviour and wonder which ones He could have skipped. Even He had to wade through the probationary state of mortality step by step receiving “grace for grace until He received a fulness”…..and he received all power, both in heaven and on earth, and the glory of the Father was with him….” (D&C 93:12,13,17).

Now relate this to us. Verses 19 and 20 of Section 93 state that we too can receive of the fulness if we follow the example of the Saviour…but we too shall receive it “grace for grace”, one step at the time, one lesson after another. Would we have that example of fulness if the Saviour didn’t embrace ALL of His mortal experience? His subjection to receiving ‘grace for grace’ was for the benefit of the human race. He showed the way to perfection.

“He is the way, the truth, and the light, and no one can come back into the presence of our Father in heaven except through him. Christ is God the Son and possesses every virtue in its perfection. Therefore, the only measure of true greatness is how close a man can become like Jesus. (President Ezra Taft Benson, in CR, Oct 1972, p 53 or Ensign Jan 1973, p 57)

I often reflect on Him ‘who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross’ (Hebrews 12:2) and know that I can hope for the same joy if I follow Him to the end of my mortality……grace for grace…..

The lessons of my life flowed like a river

Winding through days, months and years;

I rescued a few but missed so many

From the currents as I saw them passing;

They drowned in a daze of my ignorance,

Unwanted and ignored but yet abiding.

I fish them now from the pool of my memory

And give them life everlasting.

- CATHRYNE ALLEN

(Art: Jesus the Symbol of Hope by Ivan Guaderrama)

THE PATH OF OPPOSITION

 

“The ultimate purpose of the Atonement [of Jesus Christ] is to ensure our happiness and joy. But the Lord achieves that purpose in our lives through the interaction of conflicting forces that, at first, seem determined to rob us of the joy we seek. Paradoxically, our purest joy emerges from the natural tension between those opposing forces.”  (Elder Bruce C. Hafen, “The Broken Heart” p 63)

We often think that opposition in this life which befalls us is arbitrary because we are living in a world of opposites but I had an insight the other day into the process of opposition and its role in our lives. I realised that all the opposition I have been through that marred my happiness is everything that I was intolerant of before it showed up in my life.

This opposition came in the form of trials which I now understand had no aim to destroy my happiness and make me miserable but to test my resolve to adhere to the truth in the midst of my emotional distress. That was its primary purpose. I could see when I understood this that all the opposition we are confronted with in our lives is not random and is tailored to us personally. It has to be opposite to our personal values, ideals and plans for it to be a test.

I know for a fact that my reality does in no way resemble that idealistic view I once had of myself and my life. In fact, my life ended up being the very opposite of what I had once imagined. I know there are people in the world who have the life they have always wanted so I presume they are tested differently but I know we are all on testing ground in some way. And sometimes the ease of life can be a testing ground too. It makes some of us forget God.

Consider Job and his experience with opposition:

Job was “a perfect and an upright man, one that feared God and eschewed evil” (Job 2:3). His love for God was beyond fault. Job’s service to his fellowman was incredibly impressive (Job 4:3; 4:4; 29:12;13; 29:1516); 31:32). In short, Job was righteous, did good continually, was incredibly respected in the community and he was fabulously wealthy. You could say, his life was perfect. Then came the opposition to that picture perfect life.

 

Job went from the pinnacle of society to living in rags on the outskirts of the city, in constant pain, not understanding what has happened to him. He went from a picture of perfection to being disfigured with boils, and worms and maggots were bred in his sores (7:5). He ended up living outside the city on the refuse heap where outcasts and lepers lived. (7:14). Whereas, everyone in his community honoured him before, he suddenly became an outcast.  

 

He who had loved God beyond reproach felt that God had forsaken him ((19:6,7-13); His friends scorned him (Job 16:20), he became estranged from his wife who told him to curse God and die (Job 2:9; 19:17); he lost his friends and  respect of his servants (19:14-16); young children despised him and mocked him (19:18); and everyone he loved turned against him (19:19). In other words, all that was good in his life turned opposite.

 

This is my theory. The greater you are, the greater the tests of opposition. The test has to equal the stature of the man or it is not a test. If your life is particularly difficult and it is not in consequence of your own making through sin, be comforted, you are among the greats!

- CATHRYNE ALLEN

(Art: Path to Light by Ivan Guaderrama)

BEING STILL

 

“Some of us have been tried and have been tested until our very heart strings would seem to break. I have heard of persons dying with a broken heart, and I thought that was just a sort of a poetic expression, but I learned that it could be a very real experience.

“Don’t be afraid of the testing and trials of life. Sometimes when you are going through the most severe tests, you will be nearer to God than you have any idea, for like the experience of the Master himself…….’angels came and ministered unto Him’  (Matthew 4:11)”  (President Harold B. Lee, In CR, Munich Germany Area Conference 1973, p 114)

During the most intense persecution of the early saints in Missouri the Saviour gave them the most powerful advice: “Be still and know that I am God” (D&C101:16). In other words, you can do nothing, just trust that I have it in hand.

Being still means you are not being shaken or distressed by anything around you. Being still means being at peace, unperturbed by the world. Some of our trials, however, are very much like an earthquake which has immense power to disturb our stillness.

We often find out how very powerless we are to handle some trials in life. When no solutions come to us and it becomes obvious that we have no capacity to solve the problem or prevent the disaster, there is only one option available: to be still and allow God to take over.

In the advice given by the Saviour, He tells us that stillness can be possible by knowing Him, that He is God with all power, and because of it we are in His hands (v 16). A God who creates worlds without number has the power to steady us in the midst of our trials that threaten us, therefore allow God to take over.

One of the Saviour’s names is The Rock of Heaven (Moses 7:53). Helaman referred to this Rock by teaching his sons that if they would build their foundation upon ‘the rock of our Redeemer’, they could not fall (Helaman 5:12). A foundation in Christ is built by faith, trust and obedience (see Elder Bednar’s instructive explanation of foundation in his conference talk “Be Still, and Know That I am God of April 2024).

My greatest strategy for acquiring stillness when I need it is ‘remembrance’. Helaman began his advice with ‘remember, remember’…..remembering what the Saviour has done for me in my life, the revelations I have had, the understanding I have of Him, all my prayers that have been answered, all my spiritual moments with Him…. all goes towards my trust in His control over my life and the path I am on. It wasn’t always like this, but it is now that I know Him….and over and over again He brings me back to stillness and endurance.

My heart overflows with gratitude

For my darkest nights

Because they bring You to me

Flowing like a river with its strongest might.

I bask in Your presence,

I surrender my soul,

I am grounded in Your strength

I am strong enough to carry on.

 

- CATHRYNE ALLEN

(Art: Be Still My Soul by Mark Missman)

EQUALLY NEEDY

I read recently Elder Holland’s glowing tribute to his wife Patricia. He basically described a perfect woman who always had the scriptures in her hands. I walked away feeling less than good about myself wondering how anyone can be so perfect.

Do you know people who seem to have easy, wonderful lives and who seldom get touched by any trial? I do. I don’t know why some people get away with simple, seemingly perfect lives and others don’t. I would imagine a lot of factors play a part. All I know according to personal revelation is that my life was planned for me and I am trusting that. I certainly don’t begrudge anyone an easy life, in fact I am glad someone has that.  

One thing I do know. No matter how perfect you are in this life, you still need the sanctifying blood of the Atonement. Abraham, Job and Noah were the most perfect according to the scriptures but they still needed saving simply because our mortality is a fallen state. There is no other way to be redeemed and be reconciled with the Father and be brought back into His presence but through the grace of Jesus Christ.  

Noah was a ‘just man and perfect in his generations’ (Genesis 6:9). Abraham was ‘the father of the faithful’ (D&C 138:41), one of the ‘great ones’ who was in Christ’s bosom long before this earth began (Abraham 3:23), a man whom the Saviour called ‘my friend’ (James 2:23; Isaiah 41:8) and Job, what hasn’t been said about Job?  A man who ‘was perfect and upright and one that feared God, and eschewed evil’…… and yet his life turned into a ruin (Job 1:1).

Another thing I know. We do not walk in other people’s shoes. We only know what is available to the eye. We are each a walking sum of our choices, our desires, our achievements, our abilities, our responsibilities, our challenges and our opportunities. We are all different people with the same destiny. We are God’s children destined for eternal glory.

When I joined the Church I did not desire to be perfect. Instead my desire was to be a strong person. I wanted to be valiant to the end. I wanted to be like Job. This is someone I admired the most. A man who endured against all odds and still sang praises to God. He was the perfect example that the trial equals the stature of the man. The trial of faith has to have the power to destroy that faith.

Another thing I saw in Job – his humanity. His soul became weary of living and he wished to die (Job 3:3; 10:1). I have been there…more than once. Now I am learning about endurance I am often reminded of my hero Job who was rescued by the greatest hero of all who suffered it all……

You sank so deep

Into the mire of your pain;

Nobody followed you

Nobody sang praises to your name.

 

In your hour of agony

You gloried in His name

You became my beacon of hope

that I can do the same.

 

He stood as sentinel

to your yielding heart

Knowing your trust

would stand the test of time.

 

He crushed the enemy

of your soul in the final hour,

His glory, His might,

His unfathomable power.

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Artist Unknown)