Rocks in the River of Grace....

As you read last week, life has a way of hardening us. There are so many and varied ways that demands of us, to survive, that we stuff our feelings and emotions. In the family of the active alcoholic, you don’t think for yourself, you do not express your honest feelings, and you do not speak your truth, or reveal in any way the family secret. This is true of ALL dysfunctional families, and organizations. As long as we are able to either deny, or repress our true feelings there is a very sick peace. It is peace at any price, and such "peace" eventually will lead to innumerable "wars" leaving painful and destructive wounds. Wounds that must be attended to, or else the dysfunction is passed on from generation to generation. Take a real honest look at the families you know and see how the wounds of past generation is having a devastating effect on the current generations. This will, unfortunately, continue until some generation says, "Enough" and speaks the truth. The truth WILL set the person free, but it will also tee a lot of people off. That is why there must be truth speakers in each family. They are not the most popular member, but they are the most free, and above all, the healthiest. This freedom, like all freedom comes at a price. Sometimes at a great price. The one who tells the truth may themselves be attacked, wounded, and killed. Not always a physical killing, but much worse, the spiritual and psychological assassination. The "secret" must be guarded at any cost, and so the hardening will continue. The good news that The Word is intended to bring cannot be believed, or received. It is amazing the number of individuals who are so condition in the "lie", they find it so difficult to come to believe and accept the truth. They will never know or experience God's dream, The Asling, which He so desperately wishes to impart. The call to be, The Beloved, goes unheard. The beloved is loved without "condition, restriction or reservation". We do NOT, nor can we ever earn, deserve, or qualify for it.

We must always keep before that saying, "Love will find a way". The All Powerful One's Love will find a way. The way He will reach us will not, and I repeat not the way we expect Him to reach us, but reach us He will. God has His own rules, His way of doing things, and they are way beyond what we can understand. All we can do is gaze in wonder, and be gently lead to a desire to have what seems to be impossible. With God all things are possible, that is with the God, The Prophet Jesus, came to teach us about. This is not true of the false gods of human beings creation. We will, left to our own devises create a god made in the image and likeness of ourselves. The ultimate idolatry!!!!!!!!!

We all have the innate need and desire for love. Yet being who we are as wounded human beings we find ourselves as the rocky ground of the parable. When we have not experienced a healthy love , they will be no depth to us. Everything is on the surface. How difficult it is to believe the good news, and how easily we embrace the negative. If you are like me, you will hear a number of good or kind remarks, they there will be one negative comment, which one will get the most attention? Which one will have a more lasting effect? "What tangled webs we weave……" All of us , as human beings will encounter the following rocks on the journey, " guilt, anger, resentment, boredom, anxiety, greed and envy". (Also called The Garbage of Life.) These come in all sizes. From little pebbles, to seemingly immoveable boulders. These we encounter, but we are not on our own. "Where sin abounds, grace abounds even more." Grace IS ever and always being poured out upon us. This is happening to us, whether we know it or feel. It is those moments when we feel the most abandoned, the most unloved, the most lost, Grace, the love of God is most operative in our lives. The contradiction is when we feel most distant from God, and His loving presence, it is then and there we are closest to our God. The living and true God we are always discovering, anew. MYSTERY !!!!!!

I just love to hike or walk by a river, or stream. When you look at something long enough something beyond what one see initially slowly is revealed. Mountain streams are for the most part, rocky. You see the water cascading down. As it flows you can see it dodging between the rocks, as it winds its way down hill. Where the flow is strong, the water will cover the rocks, and keep on going. What were just dull rocks, now exposed to the constant flow of water, are revealed now as polished and gleaming. There is a beauty, which would not be there if the water had not flowed. It appears to me something like happens to you and I. We, as spiritual being having a human experience, will encounter small pebbles, large rocks, and seemingly immovable boulders. We are always caught up in the river of Grace. God's grace, like the flowing waters of rivers, and streams, is always slowly transfiguring, and transforming us. The river one sees, and the power one observes, is a great example of what is always happening to us, and within us. The rocks reveal their beauty on the outside, for all to see. Your transformative beauty will be an inner peace, joy, and love. You will, for the most part , have the joy, not the happiness, that no matter what the obstacle, there is a gift waiting to be bestowed upon you. A gift not for yourself, but for the person that will be placed in your life. The garbage does not remain garbage, it is transformed into treasured gifts, by The Great Recycler in the sky. "Behold I make all things new."

All we have to do is express the desire to have the pebbles, rocks, and boulders of our lives be exposed to the everlasting flow of Grace. Then time, that is Graced, will bring more delight than the most captivating Rocky Mountain river or stream. So, "let the river flow, let the river flow". Let us then allow ourselves to be immersed in, and refreshed by an endless stream of a love we will never understand or comprehend, in this life. It is not for us to analyze, it is for us to enjoy. Come then, approach with confidence, not fear, the river of Divine Merciful love immerse yourself in it's refreshing water. Drink fully from this stream. This river runs free, and is free to all who choose to drink from it, then you will "taste and see the goodness of God".