Grey Tree

There’s a tree

who’s grey branches are laden with snow.

Alone stands the Tree

majestic in the silent dawn

but alone.

There is no one to warm the tree,

no one to speak him comfort.

I’m afraid my Lord is the tree, today.

I have left Him outside my window,

cold and ladened down,

alone.

Who shall go to warm Him?

Who shall bring Him comfort?

I rise and go to the window to ask Him in

but – He calls me out,

out into the cold

to stand with Him,

alone in the silent coming light.

Heidi: the Infant

Tiny rosebud mouth half presses against the pillow.

Pale, downy fringe brushes lightly against high cheekbones.

And all that is precious

rhythmically waltzes

in and out of

two china nostrils.

The umbilical cord to my heart

has never been cut, tied,

severed, or cauterized.

It also dances with a life of its own

among the trees

and the rocks

and under the sun.

It whirls madly along

keeping pace with the waltz

folding to embrace all of life -

reaching, stretching, painfully throbbing.

Painfully the throbbing cord lays bare and exposed

to the lacerating winds of reality that yank against it -

stretching its very endurance;

almost,

but not quite,

pulling out the heart

to which it is attached.

Everlasting Love

-- Oh My Child, I love you.

I have loved you with an everlasting love.

How can you doubt?

I have been with you

and I have run before you.

I am your strength

and I am your shield.

You are Mine,

My own,

and I have owned you

and will not let you go.

I have owned you forever

and you are Mine.

Do not doubt.

Do not fear.

I am here with you.--

Dignity and Honor

............there is something sacred about coming out to the picnic table.

-- That's why Satan seeks to stop you so. --

why has the morning time become so dry?

-- Because it has become "habit". --

should I stop it?

-- No. --

revamp it?

-- Yes. --

how?

-- I will show you. At the time. Each time.

Don't try to make rules for it. --



no rules?

-- No rules. --



I'm feeling the need to "write", but I feel so conflicted, i.e.: "I don't deserve" to have You speak to me as I haven't been reading scripture a whole lot. What do I do? I hear

-- Write --

I ask, "What?"

-- What I tell you --

but in the interest of "testing" who is speaking, I sit here and bask. I feel like opening "John". As I do I hear -- 14:1 -- which says:



Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in Me... I will come back and take you to be with Me so that you also may be where I am. You know the place to where I am going (for)... I am the way , the truth , and the life.



-- And you know Me, Pat. --

I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.



I feel tense and conflicted. Help me not to make "rules" for You like: "Oh well, of course He wouldn't speak to me in the state I'm in -- I'm too riddled with yuck. Why would He want to get near?"

oh well... please talk to me anyway if that is what You wish. I wait, Lord. Let nothing else intervene, not even me.

Lord? What do I write?



-- What I tell you. --



what would that be?



-- Love Me. Love My children. My poor, poor children. Love them -- they need so much. Just love them. --



but how? What does that mean?



-- Treat them with dignity. Give each one dignity and honor. My honor. I honor each. Treat each with honor as if I were in them -- for I am, when they are Mine. I "feel" how you treat Me. Treat Me with love and treat Me with honor - no matter what the human part of them does to you. Speak to Me in them. --



oh God. Give me grace. You know I cannot do this on my own, in my flesh.



-- That is the point. --



but I don't exactly know how to let You love through me...



-- Come to Me often. Come to Me frequently. I will not leave you abandoned. I will "love" you. Oh, if only you knew! I am light and I am life. --

Breaking Pride's Protective Shell

I've been in bad shape. Don't really know why. I've found a measure of healing laying here in the woods and crying. Reading back in my journal and asking You to show me what it was I wasn't getting, has helped.



-- I notice you don't ask Me to speak into your mind. --



I guess I haven't. I seem to want to feel blank in my brain, yet I get this queasy feeling like I should ask if You have anything to say to me like last Sunday.

So, please clear my mind. Protect me from anything myself and any other input that is not of You, in Jesus name... I place myself before You, and I am willing and desirous to hear You.



-- My child - I love you.

Do not let your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid -

for I am with you.

I am with your friend. I know you are worried about her, but she is in My hands, for I love her as I love you. --



(I see a "picture" of You holding her face in Your hands and kissing the top of her head, and Your love just "running down" all over her.)



-- Keep that picture before you

and know that I love her

and know that I love you.

You do "count" with Me.

You do matter to Me. --



(Lord? The tears start to choke me.)

(-- Keep writing, child. --)



-- You do matter to Me and I love you. --



(Lord? the next thing I hear seems like just a memory from Anne's prophecy over me at Haymarket, but I feel blocked if I don't write it... and I don't want to write it because I can't believe it is from You. It sounds too preposterous.)



-- I cannot "live" without you: you mean that much to Me.

Come. Lay your heart in My hands and know that I love you. Know that I do want you for My own,

My very own. --



(please, Lord: conflicting loves and loyalties?)



-- I'll resolve them, for you cannot resolve them in and of yourself. And this is how I will do it:

I will love you until you can love no more,

and then I will love through you.

There is much love I have to offer a dying world, and I offer/long to love through you --

but your love will not suffice.

Under its severity, you would "crack".

You cannot take it: the pain is too great.

But I can take it.

Let Me love through you

Let Me care through you

Let Me tend through you.

But to do this, you first must let Me do all three for you. You do count with Me. You must know this beyond a shadow of a doubt.

You think all growth must come through suffering

but you think wrongly.

Much growth doesn't;

rather it comes through love

through the experience of being loved.

This is what changes you

This is what brings growth

This is what brings true humility: the knowledge of being loved, being deeply loved, will break the hardest shell of pride.

Yes, I know -- you have read that knowledge of being deeply loved brings humility. I can and do draw on that which you have read. But notice: I take it beyond and tell you that humility means the hard shell of pride has been broken.

Don't you see what this means? Pride is used by all as a shell to protect the heart. You have long wanted Me to deal with your pride, but I need to deal with the hurt that underlies it. --