If you are blessed, this book is dedicated to the One who is, who was, and who ever shall be.
If you are challenged it is dedicated to you.
And if you are offended let it be dedicated to my imperfection, in the knowledge that he who began a good work in me will be faithful to complete it; I am yet seeing in a mirror dimly.
The end does not have to be the end. Let that truth perplex you.
There is a desire that exists within the one who created you for you to be loved, to love, and to experience eternity. The plan for this was put into place a long time ago.
There is nothing you have ever done or could ever do that would make you ineligible.
Let me share a specific experience where I got to share God‟s heart about those he created (this includes you).
The worship leader was singing a spontaneous song. “look upon the beautiful bloodstained face of Jesus” and as is often the case with me in worship, I had begun to see Him. I was getting ready to immerse in His beauty. It is one of my favorite contemplative places.
He had other plans.
I saw his hand. His hand had the hole where he was nailed to the cross. He superimposed his hand on my hand. I reminded him we were supposed to be looking at his face. He didn’t stop but rather impressed physical weight into this experience. The weight of his arm, of his hand upon mine, alerted me that this was something he really wanted me to note.
So I looked at his hand.
His hand upon mine.
Thoughts of suffering came. How hard it is. Yet necessary. I brought a current situation before him. I shared I could not see the redemption yet. It seemed like just pain. I mentioned I did not know how he was able to do it. To go to the cross. all the way. Stay forward. Endure. And remain whole. It seems impossible in this situation I was bringing. I asked for help. His answer was to show me another aspect of the cross.
He took me back to the garden. The love was so tangible. The peace that permeated the atmosphere surely led to good health. It was beautiful. And I sensed father there. It was like His heart supported all life that was there. And suddenly it was broken. A great wrenching opened a door. Yukky things came through. Things began to change. Deterioration, which had never been known, was now a factor in all life. In this experience what gripped me the most was the tremendous explosion of pain. It was Father’s heart. He was weeping. Such anguish I had never felt. Beyond the waves I have known, this pain seemed to have no crescendo, it kept expanding. Breathing was hard. My throat was so tight. The weight of the experience had tangible tension, I could feel heaven pressing me down. The tears began but there was no articulation that could capture the feelings. I was so overwhelmed. His heart hurt because relationship had been broken. For him it was always about family. It wasn’t that he didn’t know it was coming. it wasn’t that he didn’t know what was ahead. It was the great pain of choices being made that violated love. He knew those choices would lead to death. The closest imagery that comes to mind is if you had a son and you saw him in the moment he was committing suicide. And death was not even the hardest part. It was the separation. The break of the spiritual connection that had existed and made life love. Then he spoke.
‘Jesus was willing to identify with my heart there. Only Jesus could fully share that pain.’
And then I am in the place of revelation, and people are weeping because there was no one worthy to open the scroll. And I know, that Jesus’ willingness to share the Father’s heart over broken relationship, was part of what made him worthy to open the scroll.
I am struck with the understanding that all the tears of everyone everywhere, throughout all of the halls of time, would not be enough to share the pain of my Father, that day, in the garden. And Jesus not only identified, but he offered himself, to bring reconciliation to the creature that was too immature to understand, and to ease His Father’s heart.
The revelation still feels too big for me.
He spoke again. ‘Until you identify with my heart, until you let it be your motivation, there is mixture in your agenda.’
I know the only way to identify with his heart is through his son.
I am broken.
The intensity has gripped me in a way I cannot word.
I had not known, or thought about, his sorrow.
What else can my response be?
Father, let my heart do nothing, without identifying with yours. Cleanse my agenda.
I only want to do what I see you doing. Let your love be my reason.
Teach me how to love.
Selah.
For a second, and a second more. The last days of life are so time conscious, if one is aware. The inexorable draw to another place becomes intertwined with the ticking of something known since conception- a timetable that corresponds to a divine alignment. The passing of one moment into the next is recognized, feared and embraced, not by choice but because of the grid on which we were placed. Time, time and a half, and time again. Mysteries that have defied humanity attempts to understand -unfold in ways that confound mathematics and science. The existence of space within time is a non linear grid. The suggestion of spaces within those spaces that fold and rearrange and open to other depths is not easily proven by the science understood in our age. Time factors into this along with gravity, and becomes an essence we temporarily term as reality.
Time then.
What do I know of it?
How does that knowledge define my understanding of the eternal.
Throughout my life, on an irregular basis, an older lady will approach me and speak the following- your times are his.
It always rings true, it is always when I need it, it is mostly when I doubt I am at the right moment or on the right track in life.
My times are his. To me, what that means is that if one were to take all the moments of me and number them, that their order, arrangement and sum would belong ultimately to the Lord.
In my childhood there were many experiments.
One that comes to mind along this topic is the practice involving manipulating time. I, as a child, was held in a place with other little girls. It was sort of like a horizon of some sort. We could see thickish off-white lines that looked milky, and moved, like clouds and rivers, and there was the sense that there were worlds beneath what we could see. It was a darkened light environment. Our companions were spiritual beings who dwelled in a place other than earth. Indeed, if pressed, I would say this place existed outside of the earthly dimension I know as my daily reality.
The lines were bloodlines of families.
These particular bloodlines were families that ad made covenants or pacts with spiritual beings for gain, power or protection. The pacts gave these beings the rights to perform these experiments.
The place where we observed from was outside of time.
Sometimes individually and sometimes in groups, the other girls and I were inserted into a bloodline. Our instructions were issued in growls and mutterings- hate and destroy, kill if you can, divide, alarm, cause them to fear you, be unpredictable, we will deal with the rest. And in we would go.
In an odd way it was somewhat cathartic to be involved in such acts of negativity. I could find place for all the feeling that otherwise ad no fee room in my existence. Movement was key in this endeavor. To move violently and create lots of noise was proportionate to effectiveness. Sometimes we were invisible, sometimes we were visible. Sometimes we were there for a day, more often it was longer although when we were plucked out for return it seemed as though no time at all had passed.
Those times when I observed the process, those times when it was not my assignment but I waited with the beings while others went, it was interesting what happened.
The size and type of disturbance seemed to shift the very bloodline of the family. If it was a big event, such as a death, the line grew much wider and timing shifts occurred- like the difference between watching a river that had free flow and one that had various blocks and dams that flows in abrupt and jerky motion.
If it was division over a period of time, the observance of the line showed a lengthening, almost like anything attempted in that line would be twice as hard and take twice as long.
The beings would insert us, observe results, then remove us and debrief us on what happened. They learned as we became defiled. There seemed to be a certain limits on our use. I am not sure if that was imposed because of our humanity, our age, or our providers.
I learned to be unpredictable. I learned the value of surprise. I learned I did not have to stay within the confines of expectations. Indeed, the further I strayed from those the more power I had to influence. As I learned how important time was to those who had power over me, I became similarly aware that eternity is a fact that exists on God‟s side.
Eternity is the answer to time‟s deficiency.
When the imperfections of an existence within time is fully understood, eternity is the alternate plan that turns out to be perfect in all the ways the original was not.
It turns out to be the plan that superseded because of a better model while at the same time it exists as an alternative when the old model has run its course and simultaneously it is the perfection that needed imperfection as its backdrop so it could be recognized.
Time was created and for a time, it served.
It was a way to put a beginning and an end in the middle of a longer theme. It was for communication with each other, a frame of reference that when shared could increase the ideas we want to convey. It placed importance on order. It lent stability and continuity in the midst of pulses that are erratic and unpredictable.
And when the new has come, it has replaced the need for the old. The old is passing away even now. And all things are made beautiful, in their time. My time, your time, my dog‟s time, all are different yet converging. Convergence is the step towards the emergence of a new thing. Time facilitates us learning to recognize the ways of God.
There is a more, there is a hereafter, and it is a superior model. At the same time, it currently exists. When the creator formed us in his image, there was a portion of himself imprinted onto each of us. And while the imprints are different, yet they are all the same, in that they draw us towards ideas larger than ourselves. This imprint allows us to consider with recognition that hereafter, in fact, exists now, and always has. Eternity has been placed in our hearts. We each have a sense of knowing things extend beyond our lives. Sometimes we get a sense that influence or impact is larger than the conceived, recognized moment. This awareness has made the study of history legitimate. It comforts humanity to study the known. It offers stability to encourage the unknown. But eternity is not something that can be studied according to the grid of knowledge we possess. And so it is dismissed. If it is not understandable to the human mind, surely it cannot matter? Oh, the arrogance of our hearts!
Eternity is what takes the fail of human life and coverts it into success. Eternity allows the perspective of justice as a real factor in our equation. It is what balances the unequal and keeps the positive in its proper order as ahead of the negative. It is the part of the existence continuum where values of events and imperfections change. Eternity makes the room for evil to defer to good. It lays the foundation for faith hope and love to remain. Eternity is the provision for my gaze to transcend me beyond where I am to a better place. It is both a place and a way. It is a subject and a description.
Eternity brings perspective into alignment.
The knowledge of it inspires the human soul and spirit. The taste of it creates divine hunger for more. The smell of it encourages choice that matches alignment within it. The sound of it resonates to a time before time that we all intuitively know and language fails in catching. The sight of it grips the heart and imprints it in a way that is never forgotten.
Eternity was before, it is all around us, it sometimes collides with time and topples understanding, and it exists beyond. It surrounds God and is something that was issued because of his identity. Through him all things were created, and without him there is not anything that does exist. A heart cannot beat without a framework around it. Eternity completes the cycle of continuity that removes God‟s need for a beginning and an end. He is both and still more.
You have probably touched eternity at some point in your life and felt the difference between your ordinary understanding of existence and the surprising other-worldliness that comes when the two, time and eternity, collide.
The first heart connection with your child. A certain intimate moment with your spouse that transcends both emotion and physical fulfillment and imprints you into each other for mutual sustenance and growth. The passing of a loved one. Baptism, sometimes. A car wreck, where everything seems to slowly unfold before you. A moment when you are uncertain your life existence will go into the next moment of finite time. It is almost as if time is suspended while eternity intervenes and intertwines into the event.
Eternity is a truth that creates a concept for all who exist with spirit. It makes provision for a „beyond‟ existence.
You have something eternal written into your DNA.
You will experience eternity.
The choice is yours on what that eternity looks like.
Evolving. De-evolving.
An ever expanding increase of positive beyond what you can think ask or imagine.
Or a merciful unraveling of what constitutes you in a context of bad beyond what you can think ask or imagine.
These are the two I have seen.
My spirit rests. Today my spirit finds that place, outside of time and space, that was especially designed for me, so I can rest.
People say they experience better rest around me.
People come to me in crisis so I can help restore them to their own rest.
Lets see if I can define that rest with words
Picture a mountain
Green grass on the valley area below.
Chaparral and brush growing as ground cover on the ascent.
Trees.
A trail not too well worn.
Water running down in a little gully from yesterdays rain.
Birds singing overhead.
An eagle flying high on the breeze if you look up.
A rock, jutting out of the side, just enough to be a ledge for someone seeking a momentary pause, but not enough to cause fear of its falling.
The air, open with a light breeze. The temperature between the 60s and 70s, the places where the sunlight reaches just a few degrees warmer than that.
The clouds, high and puffy, moving slowly through the sky, forming pictures and ideas on the way.
The rodents in the brush, making sounds of scurrying life. An ant, walking across the trail, in front of you, pausing to investigate a possible source of food.
Life all around you.
Consciousness descending of communion within diversity. Of all sorts of different life converging in a moment of connection and appreciation.
There is a song in that moment.
Not a human made melody, but a combination of notes and pauses and diverse instruments of footsteps and whispering brush creating a symphony, an orchestra.
A superior song, for those having ears to hear.
Transcending the physical sensations and the souls knowledge, not to escape thm but o embrace them in their place with the other life noises, the spirit recognizing th convergence and the strength that comes from things working together while apart. This defines one moment of rest for me.
Picture the ocean.
Your favorite shoreline
The waves, changing, never changing, scurrying forward and hustling back, the rise and fall of kings in their tides, the stories of the ages between their pages, jostling, changing, rearranging, discontinuing and continuing all in the same breath.
The smells, the sand, the air, the light. The fragrance of seaweed, and oils, and birds. The rich texture of fragrance permeating the air and making it thicker, more established in memory.
The sounds joining in the smells. The whoosh and the withdraw of the water, and the birds, making seagull noises overhead. The wind rustling the sand. The voices of humanity upon the shore to explore it.
All the current combined with the history. And it becomes and is becoming a memory of the richest sense, so invading cellular structure that it remains as memory when the elements are long gone. Peace for me here as well.
Imagine a song.
Each note divinely inspired and played with no agenda other than to add beauty to the whole.
The hearts and rhythms within the melody have their own song. The blood flowing through the bodies, the air ebbing and flowing in and out with the most accurate tempo, the rise and fall within the chest as transcendent experience is touched and receded The overall expression becoming more than the sum of the parts, and the joy of each experiencing a wholeness, a totality that authenticates knowledge of God. Peace is here
My daughter. Her joy, her desire to share that joy with another human being, her intuitive understanding that the joy will be more complete for its share. Her way of connecting, her leaning in. the physical, and the non physical, the moment of touch in the spirit that brings rest to us both because of its familiarity and because each time we both choose it we build something together that makes life easier Peace and rest.
Everyone has their areas.
It is that place you desire to occupy more. It is the place that, you know if you could remain in touch with it all the time, you would respond better to life in its difficult moment.
It is that part of us which was designed in the image of God. It finds rest, as he did, in goodness and creation. It is an important component in brain development, to experience and grow habitual in experiencing joy and rest. It is a natural and necessary state which allows us to explore gradual growth.
Without rest there is an erosion of who we were intended to be. The creation of the universe, both its order and its elements, speaks to us of rest being an integral part of the ebb and flow cycle of life.
In hell rest seemed to feel different. Like, things were bad ad bad and then there was a moment where the realization of how bad it was began to sink in. Just as that process began to increase (for realization and acknowledgement always empower) the level would dip down again and it would get worse. Rest, and yet un rest.
This has been a hard subject to write. I have spent much of my life trying to keep repressed these ideas and experiences. Today I am more at terms with the idea that if I had not experienced such unrest, there would probably not be such a zealous pursuit in me to find rest.
Peace and rest are largely interchangeable in my internal definitions. In rest I find peace. In peace I am at rest. But for me rest is not dependent upon the externals. Otherwise I would be a victim, responding to life and its uncertainty and being a person who only reacted to things. The growth of peace, the cultivation of it inside me, has allowed a development that manifests as my internal peace giving me a different perspective on external things. When the inside of me is solid, assured, and at rest, I am not threatened by externals that have potential to change things beyond my control. The internal is established. It will remain and I grow stronger through trials. I don’t like trials, but I have developed a healthy respect for their necessity in my growth. That kind of peace fosters physical health. It reminds my soul to not entertain or enlarge or succumb to worry. It enable me to let go of things easier. It opens the doors of revelation so I can hear more clearly. It invites and embraces wisdom that has eternal value, and it postures me to receive perfect love in the midst of imperfect situations.
Peace is not something I would have appreciation for had I not experienced the intolerable no-peace plateaus of existence within wicked domain.
I used to become physically ill when I was within 20 feet of someone who had spiritual authority. I became sexually aroused when I was near someone who exerted a lot of spiritual energy. I worried about who cut my har. When I cut my findernails they had to be done in a certain order and trashed in a certain way. Phones and doorbells would tap into an internal panic that never quite rested. There was no way to enjoy a moment singularly for its own sake. There were attachments to everything, and in my mind I thought I was responsible for keeping track of all that.
I did well for a while
Peace means I don’t have to keep track
Peace means I have trust in a higher power that is invested in me with the agenda that involves my good.
Peace means that I know perfect love, it is on my side, and it wins whether or not I can yet see that ending.
I would not trade the peace I have today….for all the tea in china.
There are ways to cultivate peace. One is by going into a contemplative state. Meditating on an attribute of God or on his divine nature until our focus of that supersedes the life of the soul.
In hell you cannot do that anymore. Knowledge of the holy has been dimmed. It is the mercy of God for it to be so- lest you be even more condemned for knowing and not responding rightly.
The lack of peace progresses to more absence which digresses into the unraveling of the very DNA with which you were formed. You unbecome. Peace is not an attribute, an option, nor a luxury that is available. If you are going there, you should enjoy peace now, while you can. It is something that is missed when it is gone.
49 Reasons
I remember when I started to recover the memories of my horrific childhood. There were many things I needed washed off of me in those days. This set of memories was from a long list of atrocities. My human mind had no way to grab hold of reconciling my everyday life within the context of what I was now knew.
I remember one time when the Lord wanted to help me in having perspective.
He took me to the story of the unforgiving debtor. The man had owed the king a tremendous sum of money. The king had ordered that if he did not pay he should be cast into debtor‟s prison, with his family. The man begged. Pease forgive my debt. Please don‟t send me to prison. Please have mercy on me.
The king forgave the man. The man went on his way, only to happen across a servant that owed him money. The amount was a fraction of what he had owed the king. The man demanded, pay what you owe me! The servant did not have the money. The man then ordered for the servant to be thrown in the same prison he had just been pardoned from!
The Lord explained it this way.
Because of whom he is, because of his holiness, his love and his mercy, any time in my ordained number of days that I am not fully turned towards him and on my face worshipping him, the majesty of who he is, I am missing the mark, or sinning. He created me and holds me together by his focus on me. He gave me my essence, the free will to develop it. He gave me gifts. He loves me so much he gave himself as a sacrifice so I could spend eternity with him. He made a way for me to find healing and be free. He did it all. All that I am or have is because of him. When I am not in full acknowledgement of this, I am in sin.
Not only that, but my sin is far greater, against him, than any sin that could ever be committed against me. I am the man who owed the king a debt I could never repay. And he, in his mercy, has forgiven me.
Anyone who sins against me owes me a smaller amount that I owed the king. When I demand justice, or payment from another who owes me a lesser amount, I am like the man who was shown mercy and withheld mercy from others.
This understanding has both enlarged my understanding of the nature of God, the reality of the cross, and the necessity for my heart to live in mercy.
This understanding has helped me to extend grace because I have received grace.
In those days it seemed like what was done against me was worse than anything the Lord experienced. In the middle of pain it is hard to see clearly. It felt righteous to say that since we have no record of him being sodomized, that he could not identify with it. And, he could not say that this atrocity happened to him. What I didn‟t realize was the immense truth that not only did he endure torture to become healing for my abuse, but he also endured the cross so those who hurt me could be forgiven as well. That it was far more, what he accomplished, than the pain of the original event. And he did it for everyone, for every sin ever committed.
My father in law got sick recently- bladder infection. He got incoherent. He started talking about historical events. I saw, in the spirit, that he was reliving grudges he had borne and anger that was unresolved. As this window was open, I saw that Jesus was standing beside me. I had the favor to catch my relative‟s attention. I said, look, here is Jesus. He replied, who is that? And immediately he returned his focus to a grudge where he had vowed to get even, and he was considering how he could wreak his own justice. In the spirit, I was vexed. I knew if he could not release those things, he would miss receiving the mercy Jesus had for him.
Bad stuff happens that we are not responsible for. But we are responsible for how we respond. We can choose Jesus, who fixes it all. Or we can refuse him, and be doomed to the failure of our own machinations in making wrong things right.
Part of it, part of what is hard, is trust, of course. If I perceive he was not there when bad things happen, then it may be hard to believe he will do anything now, or that he will make a difference in my eternal state. When I was little, I saw more bad than good. I believed darkness had power, more power than God.
But, enter…grace. I didn‟t have to have absolute faith that he was who he said he was. I didn‟t have to believe that he would heal me completely, or make the wicked ones pay. All I really needed was a desperation that was certain I needed something more than I had, and a willingness to be shown that he was that something. I think my prayer was, if you are real, please show me. I need help.
Recently I read a sermon that was written by Jonathan Edwards. It is called, Sinners in the hand of an Angry God. He talks about how short we fall. And how, in our fallen place, we arrogantly dishonor the reality of who God is. I know there are still areas in me that do not acknowledge his omnipotence, his omniscience and his mercy. He could stop thinking about me for a nanosecond and I would cease- it would be as though I had never been. But he waits. Not only does he wait, but he did all the hard part- he already proved himself by dying for me. And he is the creator of all things. He has every right to force my adoration. But he waits. He wants my love to be my choice. That still amazes me. Grace grace.
I heard a friend tell a story when he came to town about Billy Sunday. He was emphasizing how Billy would go into an area. Just being on a street, he carried so much of the presence of the Lord, that bars, nearby to the street where he was ministering, bars that he was not personally entering, would close. I was so provoked by this story. I asked the Lord to show me how to carry him like that. Over the next several hours, he took me into a passage in the Bible where a child was possessed and the disciples could not heal him. What was revealed in the passage was that it was an issue of unbelief. I asked the Lord to show me where I move in this, so that I could remove it from me. His response was simple. Any time I question his timing, or determine that I think I know better, anytime that I decide stuff about God because my mind does not agree, I am acting in unbelief.
I did not receive Jesus because I have perfect faith. It is him in me that makes my faith perfect. When I consider how much unbelief still finds home in me I become aware of greater amounts of grace.
Grace means I don‟t have to have it all together. I do not have to understand it all. God‟s grace comes for me because it is who he is. It is not because I did something terribly right. Or because someone who knows me prayed the right prayer. Grace means that in my imperfection, I can meet God and not be destroyed.
Grace means that the worst of me he has already seen. And died for.
Grace means I don‟t have to be religious or rigid to earn him, to be worthy of his love.
There is nothing I could ever do, or not do, that would change his love for me, because- he is love.
Grace means I get to feel that love and be restored by it.
Grace offers me hope when I blow it, time after time. Not as a license to choose badly, but as the acknowledgement that despite my best effort I will screw up and he will cover it and reconcile me again to himself if I want him to.
Grace means the cross, and all that was accomplished there, is bigger than me.
Grace means I get to see beyond myself and my limits.
Grace has a flavor. It is freedom.
Grace is something that is absent in hell.
You have made your choice.
And now you are bombarded. You experience sensory overload. You can no longer shut it down as you have in the past. It is like the barrier you had on earth has been ripped away. Violently. What you used to be able to deflect or ignore- it is as though those abilities have been removed from you. There is (willing or unwilling) an openness to the environment, to the sights and sounds, to the smells. It cannot be blocked. It‟s reality is stronger than your ability to sort. The functions of your brain, that were able to separate through the 6 billion bytes a second and determine what was important, are not sophisticated enough for this place.
Imagine the worst horror you have ever known. Go ahead. Let‟s be real. If you are reading this, you want to know what it is like. So take a minute. Let it come. Remember how words were inadequate. Remember the inability to articulate to another human being what had gripped your soul. Remember the inescapable feelings. Remember the powerlessness. And the attempt of your brain to reconcile what you saw, felt, heard as part of your reality. Remember the brain‟s assessment of it being impossible, how it felt to try to turn inward. To do anything to give anything, for it to not be so. The feeling of irreversible change that can never be denied.
Magnify it. To a larger number than man‟s number system can comprehend. And make it last forever. Continually, forever, getting worse. You may have a taste.
Your mouth will feel like it is on fire there, although there is no visible evidence of flames. There is a constant accompaniment of ash that cannot be removed. It is acid like, even when you have your mouth closed. Your worst dental experience has just begun. There is an erosion beginning. You can feel it. Little grits of what feels like sand are forming in your mouth. Your teeth have begun to erode. It is like the decay that your body would have naturally experienced once your life had ended. It is important for you to know you must decrease. You could not receive it while on earth. You will receive it here. Because you did not exercise your will to align with truth during the time you were given free will, you have forfeited the right. You never were big enough, were you, to think that because you did not acknowledge God, he did not exist? His mercy for you is that you will align before you are no longer you. You can try to get the taste out of your mouth. It is sort of like being made to eat something that is incredibly awful only you had no choice and it cannot be removed. You will find, there, after trying a few times to get this out of your mouth, that it is much better to keep your mouth closed than opened there.
Your nose is assaulted in a way that seems larger than your experiences on earth.
Remember how it was connected to your taste on earth? That remains but more is added. The sticky sweet smell of death overrides all. And there is, on top of that, filth and perversion. And then, you realize that while on earth the things you were drawn to or away from, they all had a smell but it was not physical. You can smell spiritual smells there. Hate has a smell. It assaults your sense of smell. You must smell it. You cannot turn away. I guess if your hands are free (mine were not) you might try to cover your nose but it would not matter. Smells are evidence there. They exist to torment you.
Stench, garbage, mold, evil, all the smells you ran from are no longer possible to avoid.
Those things that gave you temporary satisfaction while you were on earth are there too. Only now they are revealed as the elements of idolatry and the smell that you used to enjoy is now allowed to pummel you, become a part of you, and change, rearrange you. It is funny how the smell that initially drew you can now be your torment. Perhaps it was before, you had a choice. And now it has ownership in part of you. Did you know when you chose it that you were giving away your choice? It probably wasn‟t the first choice. Or the second. But choice after choice, hardening your heart like fat hardens the arteries in your blood.
It is hard to explain how things work there. Let me appeal to your understanding of connections here on earth. Take a cup of coffee. You add cream to it. Maybe sugar. They become a part of your drink. Or imagine the best sex you have ever had. It is the ultimate expression of union that you have sought all your life in sexual encounter. That moment of simultaneous climax with your partner, when for a fragment outside of time, you are truly one. All your best, and all their best merge together in a symphony that exults in the truth that there is more. Consider the richest relationship you have known. The feelings of connection that brighten your heart. The moments of joy even when you are apart, to feel connected on a higher plane. Or think of how when you eat food. It gets absorbed by your body, loses its integrity to become one with you. Now imagine that this can work in the opposite of good. And that you will have no defense of this happening there. Everything
you taste, or say, or smell, or see, or hear, it all joins you. There is a constant swirl of changing ever changing composition decomposing. Your scream becomes another‟s torment. And vice versa. Theirs become yours. Incomprehension becoming comprehension refusing again to comprehend. No way out. Merging. With free will gone. And in an absence of love. This is hell.
You hate your eyes. You wish you could rip them out. You no longer want the gift you see stuff. The images your eyes capture are burned into your soul. Layer upon layer of images, things you cannot sort through, things you wish you had never seen. Things you cannot erase. Things that do not fix in the box of possible while you were here on earth. You see a limb ripped off. You see the agonized expression of the body. And the limb reattaches, only to rip again. You may see past the outside of someone‟s body. You may see through their skin which is deteriorating and becoming translucent. You may see their organs and you may see the worms inside them, causing great pain by feeding on the essence of who they are. You might see the demons, crazy with blood lust, nibbling on their outsides, wanting to create the deepest pain possible for the longest period of time. Your eyes try to look away. You close them. Only, you can still see. You open them and see images upon images, some things coming into focus and appearing closer until you are tormented and then receding so something else can come close. Because you too are the object of torment. And every sense is a possibility for beings who know only hate and chaos. You are in the presence of beings who perceive that your torment satisfies something but they are on an addictive course, where they only want more and as you devolve, you have less.
The colors you see are all muted and mixing, like when you were a child and you were painting and you forgot to clean your brushes. And the paint got all mixed you and the resulting color was a dirty dark colorless mess. Understanding the concept that everything in heaven is becoming one and forever expanding will help you picture the counter is happening in hell. Everything is joining but becoming less. There is a shrinking of the lesser than. Eternal torment continues forever yet it continues to shrink forever as well so the human cognizance, which could never withstand the intensity beyond time with no end, does not remain in the same state but decreases as God‟s goodness increases.
Sometimes the colors are separate for a minute, but they are yet muted. Things meld and the combination is always less vibrant and less alive that it was before. You look to the left, there is a child molester whose bones are showing. His skin is almost gone, he is being prepared for a lower level. And you intuitively know the lower level has even more torment and torture to be endured. His choices hardened his heart to prepare him for the deeper levels of torment. It will take more to unwrap who he is and unwrapped he must be because God is just.
You see the heavy sigh of the woman who put material possessions first in her life. You see the groan leave her lips as a sulfur colored utterance. You see her eyes, beyond regret, shift from hopelessness to rage. Something like consciousness and a flicker perhaps of her desire for change simmers into view then is discarded because faith has no room to grow and hope has no life to nourish it.
You long for sleep and dreams but in this place all the dreams are bad and they are coming true. There is no longer the gift of a lucid will to effect change. You gave that gift away when you submitted your will to the power of darkness.
Look and see the teenager, what he once was is no longer clear but the bully is now fully intimidated and it is not enough. This is not a battle where submission or surrender ends it. You have no power here and hatred must be fed. You are the food. You, who were created in the image of the most high God and were unconditionally loved by him are the object of hatred. Those being whose hearts no longer understand light see you as a target that claims they have had victory over God. Reason only exists in light. Darkened understanding has removed truth. Lies and deceit reign here.
For me the sounds were the worst.
Screaming. Hissing.
Wailing.
A sound that actually makes you think of gnashing teeth. It is the sounds of feeding demons.
Shrill screeching.
Gleeful cackles.
Grunts of greed.
I never realized how much worship is a part of creation until this experience of seeing it removed. The depths of bowels trying to be expressed but impossible without truth.
Slapping flesh sounds, watery fluid sounds and sucking sounds. Swallowing sounds.
Fluid is being removed sounds. Cracks and snaps and splintering sounds as things divide. Shuffles and competitive sounds as beings fight and bump into each other and become competitive in their torment. High pitched disharmonic sounds. Lower chords of dissonance. Popping. Buzzing. Intensity increasing to wails that crescendo and never end.
All the sounds that won‟t exist in heaven are captured here. Boasts. Triumphant umphs. New understandings of pain cries for release. Begging lots of begging. The laughter there is horrible. It is not about humor but rather it is about satisfied depravity. There seemed to be different levels. There is a combination of triumph and defeat that embodies deception. It is futility, the sounds that created dissonance on earth are loosed here to have their expression. Devolving changes the sounds. They become harder to distinguish as human. Language deteriorates like all else there. That‟s okay. Because without understanding there is no resolution. Things here cannot be understood. There is no more reconciliation. Reconciliation sounds of knitting, communion, and unity are gone. What remains are the sounds that rip tear and destroy.
Whatever you do don’t put your feet down. Once there is a certain level of joining with what else is there, I am not sure you can go back. We were given special shoes to wear and told not to touch anything.
The absence of love is something that is very difficult to comprehend while we remain here. While we do not always recognize it, love makes up a portion of the very fabric of all people, places, things. It is the glue that produces hope.
Imagine feeling pain beyond bear without ever having someone who shows a modicum of kindness to help you get past it.
Imagine a hole that you cannot get yourself out of. No one is there to even pretend that they care.
If there are no more tears and no more pain or weeping in heaven, there is just as surely no end to them in hell. But imagine no one caring about your plight, your pain. In fact the only emotion that continually grows is hate, hatred that seeks more pain and more tears from you and is never appeased.
There is no such a thing as an act of kindness there. Wicked enjoyment exists instead. The satisfaction that motivated all the efforts to separate you from your creator worked yet there is no satisfaction. There is no peace. No filling. No rest. All that remains is an external hunger that feasts on torment. Yours, if you are there.
Never again will someone change your diaper because it is dirty. Never again will someone will give you medicine or take you to the doctor because you are ill. You will not again see someone‟s eyes light with enjoyment when they see you. Your phone will not ring. No more messages will be left for you. Never again will someone cook a meal for you. A kind word spoken by a server in a restaurant will seem like a bar of gold in your past. You will not enjoy another meal. The pleasures your tongue experienced will also be past. Those things you chose to fulfill yourself with while on earth count against any additional fulfillment there- you chose your reward already. The beauty of a sunrise will fade forever. Freedom from fear is a thing of the past. Fear will now be your constant companion, as long as your understanding of companionship remains. You have chosen this. It was your choice. The day of mercy for change is past. There is only the mercy ahead that will allow deterioration to erode what remains. By ignoring the benevolent omniscience of God you have picked your course. You say yes to someone- who will you choose?
Different levels here.
You have assigned to yourself the unredeemable fear that removes you from love voluntarily.
Never again will your heart be warmed by delight or enjoyment or rest. Can you imagine the utter absence of everything that resembles or speaks of the goodness of God? You will realize that everything here that spoke of the Lord spoke of his love. The enemy sought your worship so he could find easement in the destruction of who you were. It is his modus operandi- anger hate and lies. He has not love. He spurned the love of his creator, and instead chose a void that he thought he would fill with his own goodness- alas- he had no goodness apart for God with which to fill it.
Negative, without balance. Destiny is gone, already eaten up. Understanding brings more pain. A continued unfolding of realization is all that remains- the fullness of the decision must be realized. Death was chosen over life. No more roads towards light. The pretense of light has fled. Darkness consumes the territory. There are flickers of pretend light to increase the torture but that is all.
No grace. Imperfection is all that remains, and perfection is past tense. It is as though you have chosen to be a slave of one who holds you in utter contempt. Your frailty is weakness to him, your best is disgusting. He gave you an illusion before that you could please him. That illusion is gone. Affirmation no longer exists. You may have experienced a portion of this if you have suffered under the oppression of the evil one while you were here. There- it never ends.
God.
In Him is all. There is nothing that is, that is not from Him. Every life was created, initiated, ordained and sustained by Him. So how can it be that God would create a place like hell?
How would it be if no place was created? How would it be if Satan and the fallen ones were destined to be among us forever, ruling the area they were given and continually, forever plotting for the destruction of man, whom God loves? What would it be like to consider an eternity at war with Beings who are strategic in conceiving to steal…to kill…and to destroy? Would that seem like justice? Would that seem fair?
Even with the limited and finite understanding we possess, we know intuitively that this fate would be unjust. So many cannot embrace this that they have then chosen to believe there are no such Beings as Satan. The arrogance humanity displays in redefining what is so comfort can be maintained is truly extraordinary. If it doesn‟t make sense to us, it cannot be so. I get stuck in it too.
What about love? Isn‟t love, especially the love of God, enough to cover a multitude of sins? Isn‟t there room for God to correct and forgive in love?
It is always the first card he plays.
And we get to choose. Think about this for a minute. If there were no invisible Spiritual Beings other than God, and he asked us for our voluntary love, would there be a choice for us other than him?
This is arrogance- to think that because I cannot understand a thing- it must not be God.
This is mercy-that I still exist in spite of my arrogance.
This is love- that he gave all he had, more than I realize, already- so I could go to a beautiful place filled with light and remain with him forever. The cost for this life was not something I could pay. So he paid it for me, regardless of whether I choose him or not. Talk about no strings attached!
Who are we to think that our finite minds could grasp eternal truths in their fullness? If
God stopped considering me, for a moment, the very fabric of me would disintegrate and
I would be erased. God who created us is God who sustains us. Without the restraint of His Spirit, there would be an invasion of evil into the very air so thick it would make breathing impossible. It would make my ability to contemplate God equally impossible. Forgiveness would not exist. The responsibility alone, for my own imperfections, would burden me and kill hope of spiritual life.
Here is a lie- that it is pride to believe I am special and created for a unique purpose. It misses the mark to not believe this about me.
I had a vision. God. Sizeless, endless, alive. I saw his hand pull something out of his heart. He fashioned it and placed it on the land. He spoke an extra level of life into it. And there was a journey. That which he shaped moved away…farther and farther, to a certain point. I heard a voice- it said, “this far and no farther”. Then it all became turned and it headed back towards him. When it reached him again it became a part, once more, of his heart. So it is, with all creation, that chooses him. Making other choices makes the path longer and may even change the final destination, but returning to his heart was his blessing for us. He showed me the point when that which he made was the farthest from him. That was time when my heart was the farthest from the knowledge of his love. Where are you in your journey? Are you headed towards him, or headed back? Consider that we have been pulled out and fashioned from the very heart of the uncreated God of all that ever was, or is, or shall be! He knew how hard it would be to make that turn…from leaving to returning in his direction. He knew the enemy would distort sound in the spaces between us. And so he gave us proof that his love remains. His welcome does not end. He offered up something we would recognize. Life. The death would stand as evidence for the days when we are cloudy or confused. What an amazing plan!
We were created to know love. To be love. To become an ever increasing perfect form of love.
God created a place for our development. Of the people, for the people and by the people. We choose. To continue in the plan of perfection. Or to try to form our own perfection.
But God could never not love you! You are a part of Him. And he prepared a place for you so you could be with him forever. It is so beautiful that you will be more satisfied than you knew possible. He demonstrated his love for you already. He so loved you that he gave his only son up, to die a tortured death, so that his son could take the sin you could not wash off yourself- his son refused all temptation so he could be the sacrifice for you to have restored relationship with you. He loves you that much!
Love is God. God is love. From him we come, and back to him we will return. The stuff here that happens, it is all part of the transforming work to mature us, so that when we are all one again the glory will be more glorious. He knew we would not be able to do this on our own. God is mercy. And mercy made a way for our reunion with the uncreated glorious God. Our God. His plan is beautiful. Our requirement is that we come to the end of ourselves.And that we yield. And find the peace in yielding that leads us into perfect love. God‟s plan was that we, minute vessels that we are, would be demonstrations of his excellence on the earth. But he is not out to force us. He will not coerce or intimidate. Sometimes people who do not know him fully try those techniques, and it can feel atrocious. But that is their wounds, it is not an accurate representation of him. He is light, and freedom, and love. Unconditional and full. He made a way for us, and then he issued forth the decree that it would only be if we were willing.
He knew there would be some who went their own way. There will be some who believe that they can find fulfillment in themselves. He understood. And yet, he is mercy. And he recognized that for them to stay in that state of arrogance for eternity especially after seeing they had missed the goodness of love, would be torture. To forever live with the knowledge that you had missed it, to forever be aware that you had denied what is truly good because you thought too highly of yourself, would be an existence of eternal condemnation.
And he knew there would be some who pledged their allegiance to the lesser lights for the power they offered. He knew that some would make the decision to corrupt their own hearts because their souls were more important to satisfy than their spirit was to develop. He saw in advance the regrets they would have on the day when the truth changed the earth. He knew it would be intolerable for them to carry the guilt of knowing they had forfeited love for pettiness. He knew the angers and hate that were harbored in their hearts would do even more destruction if left to continue growth.
And he knew there would be some who let the fabric of their faith be owned by darkness. There were some who might not consciously go their own way but by letting their fear run them, they gave their allegiance to the opposite of peace ond overcoming victory.
God sees the heart and he will judge justly. Far better than any other man.
I remember a day in the shower. It was before the repressed trauma of childhood had come forth in my life. I was washing and my legs lost their strength. Down I went. The water was hitting my head, and my eyes if I turned my head up. He spoke. He said that I was going to be angry (when I remembered). He said to remember that I am not the judge of the human heart. I did not create them and I was not qualified to know what had built in them to cause them to respond the way they did. He told me vengeance is his. And he said that I was to focus on me, and my responses, and let him take care of the things that were his.
James, Samuel, my list here?
Because a part of his plan he put into place knowing some would turn from him. In mercy he saw that for those who chose the ways that destroy, it would be intolerable torment for them to remain in that state forever without decay. And so, he allowed sin to enter into Adam and Eve. And when they chose what missed God, decay became a part of the plan.
In addition he added decay into the ends of those who fall away, too far way, from the heart of their Father. He balanced the expansion and contraction of our world with his plan. For those who choose life and the love that evolves into completion, expansion continues. And for those who choose fear over faith, or darkness, or themselves, because of the futility they will eventually hit, he create a place that contracts. It devolves. Deteriorates. Unravels. Removes itself. Loses connection with the gift of life so that it cannot forever sin against it. Transformation into lower life. Just as it was mercy to remove the eternality from Adam and Eve the moment they sinned, it is the same mercy that recognizes the impossible burden of carrying sin forever without release. And so, as those who live grow from glory to glory, those who do not believe will change, from life to death to lesser death to lesser, until non existence is the final act of mercy that is possible to recognize.
This is mercy- to make a decision that others may not understand, that others (the very same ones he wants to woo into love) might be offended by- is the risk that love demanded.
A rescue, from destruction too terrible to bear. Even to the end he is mercy.
What is your definition of terrible? What is the worst you can imagine? Once hell was created, and the enemy recognized the cost of his defeat, he sought again to counterfeit God. Where God says eye has not seen, nor has ear heard, nor can it enter into the hesart of a man what God has prepared for those who love him, the enemy has, by his own actions, chosen an abode the exact opposite. In opposing God he determined his own fate. And the eternal that used to turn towards life now turns toward death. Perpetually. And without recourse.
It is hard to go to and impossible to leave once you have touched it.
Most spiritual experiences are like that.
Doors that are opened you can almost always go through again.
If you choose.
Most of the time (hopefully, for you) that is desirable; a good thing.
The good places I get to go I want to revisit.
Not this place.
This place I would rather not know exists.
This destroys my ability to rest comfortably in doing what feels good.
This place challenges my assumption that everything will always turn out ok.
The existence of this place pushes against all the denial I would rather have. It is not easy, nor comfortable.
I would rather know other things…goodness…light…love.
How can I convey with words a place that is so assaulting on so many levels that mere words do not touch the depth of it?
As soon as I begin to write I am there again.
Perhaps the writing will purge it from me.
Forgive me as I pause.
God. Wash over me. Please. Again.
The residue fills my senses; my eyes again overflow with involuntary tears.
How much longer, Lord?
Where is redemption here?
I do not understand.
There is no grid this fits upon. I have not heard teaching that comes close to elaborating the immensity of this reality.
Yet, you are good.
And everything you do has purpose and reason.
And love.
Will the record of these things touch a human spirit in such a way that change will be experienced?
Is there a plan and a purpose for your glory to be revealed through this writing?
Will this bring me closer to you?
I do not know.
All I know is I must write.
And continue to ask for you to wash. Over me God. Till I can‟t feel anything but you.
Yes.
Your way, not mine.
Your cup is the cup that perfects your work in me.
Oh, that I could always yield.
No to the things in me that shriek at this. No to those things that would provide an easy way out. This is not a self help book.
I remember telling a friend once, that I had been to this place. I told him that Beings had taken me there because the Frenchman had offered me to them. The Frenchman believed that if he offered little girls for this purpose, that he would get a predetermined amount of tokens. On the day of his reckoning, those tokens would add moments, even hours, years he hoped, to his time here on earth. My friend has good discernment. He asked me a question. He said who holds the keys to death and hell? How could these Beings have the authority to take me there? I was left with the option of asking Jesus if these experiences were real. I was faced with the risk of asking Jesus if He would show me what hell really was. I love truth. And I could not bear the thought of having experiences in me that I had falsely believed to be true turn out to be illusions…perpetrated by an enemy who is the father of lies. So I asked Jesus to show me what is true. Even if I had to revisit, or even if I had to go to the „real‟ hell so that truth would be in me.
Time passed. Nothing happened. A year later the Lord spoke on this issue. He said my friend did not understand the reason Jesus has those keys. They are not to keep people from going there. The keys are to lock the door once the final determination has been made on an existence.
Ah.
So for me this is true. I believe everyone needs to acquire a specific truth for their journey to be complete. All of us have some common truths. And there is a man whose name is Truth. Beyond that our journeys and the nuggets of truth we need may vary somewhat. This may or may not be truth for you.
One of the struggles in writing this piece is that I have overcome. The blood, the word of my testimony, and not loving my life unto death has all been a part in helping me lead a victorious life. My relationship with Jesus is exquisite. I have a husband who loves me a lot. I have awesome kids that are growing up without my childhood as their ball and chain. I am in leadership roles in various life areas. I don‟t need to remember any more. I have been validated and I feel legitimized. I have come to terms with who I am, and how God made me.
Yet there is a prompt. And coming into contact with the memories transcends time again. And I am reminded there are people who do not know, who have not heard.
Being obedient, without knowing why, is true trust. Perhaps as I grow into truer trust, I will learn the reason I write. Perhaps not. But it is better to obey….
Than to sacrifice.
So I die to live. And lose to gain. And I write.
You there, with the dark hair over your right shoulder….or you with the butterfly top on…you with the earring that covers your ear…I can see you as I write. You are living for the day and you are calling it freedom. I know how exhilarating it is…I used to do it too. You are doing what you want to do and it is fun to be alive. It feels like fullness, enjoying each breath and pleasure, and getting through the rocky places.
Before I remembered, I didn‟t remember.
Each Fourth of July presents itself. Inexorably the clock of time moves forward. And each second rushes away as the tide, with a different second coming to take its place. Until all the seconds have been accounted for. Until it is time. Time for the spirit to leave the body eternally. Time for transition to a new level.
Do you know what happens after that? Do you wonder? What do others say? Where will you be and what will it feel like? Are you hopeful it will be good? Do you have a desire to explore that place Christians call heaven? Is hell real? Do you sort of wish that life was easier because you know you would do better if it was?
Some Christians make it seem like you have to give up all the things you like and become a fake sort of happy. Hollow. Unreal.
I‟m sorry. I‟m sorry you were given an impossible ideal with no way to be successful in it. I‟m sorry you got a set of rules you couldn‟t follow. I‟m sorry the image of God was that he is critical, harsh and demanding. I‟m sorry you were expected to follow a boring routine that took spiritual life instead of giving it. What a drag, hey?
Who wants that?
What would you say if I told you that God is mostly happy? What would you say if I told you he wants you to experience the supernatural? And he wants you to succeed in such a way that others look at your life and say wow, if that is being a follower of Jesus he must be good?
For me, I heard all the stories, but they were just that….stories.
My reality was that I had no evidence of God in my life. My faith in darkness was greater; I had seen more of it.
People hurt. God seems absent. Nothing good lasts forever. You just have to try to the best you can with what you have. An average, ordinary theology. It had its hopeless moments, but hey, it was better in putting dumb hope into something that would crash and hurt worse.
And the stuff my spirit knew from my previous experiences did not fit on the grid and so it was squished up, good and small, into the recesses of me and my soul, my mind, my heart with a wall, made all the decisions.
It worked for a while. We are wonderfully made to endure and continue.
But I got tired.
And I was headed nowhere.
And I started wondering….what if?
Is this all there is?
Why am I here?
Stuff like that.
And I allowed myself to remember. The flower shop in the dream. The sink holes. People falling in…screaming. The panic beginning to dominate as more people collectively realized this was an out of control situation that was not going away. And it did not fit on anyone‟s grid.
As I write I wonder. Why are you reading? What do you believe? Will you have any identification inside of you as you turn these pages? How will you rate me, when you are done? But when it is all said and done…for me those things matter less…than obedience.
As bad as it is, please remember, there is God. And God can save me from this place.
And if He can save me, I know He can save you too. If you choose…
astonished again 