“The Grand Embrace of Love”

Pain blocks love – and then becomes a doorway for love to enter in.

 

I See Papa’s love for the me who is in MacKenzie,

Take after take, stab after stab,

Grace upon grace

 

I Hear Her truth of being for me in everything,

I never left her, I never left you

I never leave

 

I Feel MacKenzie’s fury and desperate wrestle with the senseless and the crazy,

The agony of unanswered questions

Glare meets gaze

 

I hold “The Great Sadness” as it shuts me down and wipes me out,

Clipped wings, unable to fly

Resistant to being loved

 

I know I am stuck in the knothole of pain as I hang on my cross,

I twist, I turn,

I resign

 

I Acknowledge the reality of being helpless, seeming hopeless, in

Pain and death, suffering and sorrow, anguish and agony

A gut-wrenching scream, “Get me out of here!”

How can I ever get through to the “other” side? A whisper comes – I must.

 

I Let Go into the wild power of not knowing,

Yielding as I melt and awake to what is. Here. Now.

Some how I trust in the flow of forgiveness and freedom.

My silent Yes surrenders into the simple astonishing love that has always echoed in me.

 

I receive “The Grand Embrace” of relentless affection for She is awfully fond of me.

I am wrapped in a beautiful enveloping that sheds the illusion of separateness.

I expand to hold what is most precious to me, and am sustained within and all around.

I am recalled – to the radiant freedom of a life of love – recalled to know who’ve I’ve always been.

I am Home with Love

Reflective Poem & Photos by Lorie Martin

One early morning in December my body was wrestling with sickness and I lay alone in the dark on the good old couch. It was that time of year, plus a few other complications, and in this state of YUK my inner pains joined along with my body aches and it seemed darker still; a bit of despair and anguish lingered near. As the familiar warm tears of sorrow broke through the normal wellness dam I was met by a surprising Sound. The Voice whispered a secret medicine directly into my story.

From my journal Dec 3/16 @ 7:50 am.

I’ve just been given an amazing gift!!! I am still sitting in the midst of it.

I have been lamenting the death of our Adriana and now another loss with a MattersMost situation. I’ve been beating myself up as a parent. I’ve been in tremendous pain. As I was looking at my life with some despair. I sensed God showing me Jesus’ life and how it wasn’t a glowing report of everything looking perfect around him on earth all the time either. He suffered a lot.  And then ….. I had The Words come…..  the disciples spent three years with God-in-flesh, up close and in their faces, and when push came to shove in overwhelm they all went  to their various ways of being; one even ended his own life. They were with Perfect Parent (The Father and he were One), Perfect Truth. Perfect Wisdom. Perfect Friend, Perfect Peace, Perfect Guide, and Perfect Love for 3 years day and night, city to city,  miracle after miracle, hearing powerful preaching and life-changing stories. And yet they …..

How can this be? In a way I could relate to Jesus as a parent/teacher giving my love, pointing to Divine Grace as best I knew, being capable  and incapable, loving as fully as capacity allowed  ….. yet hard things happened. Confusing things. Painful things. Awful things.  It happens. And in the twelve!!! Resounding in my heart, mind, and body and singing through my soul is “EVEN IF you’d have been perfect….. you don’t know.”

STILL The Holy With Us One is for us in all and is redeeming all things in the end and along the way. He gets my hurting heart. I’m broken wide open at this gift of mercy with out flowing tears.  I guess I am invited to a new place with some of this.”

I asked my trusted friends and companions:  Does this make sense? It’s quite impacting. I don’t remember ever hearing this before. They reassured that it has the embrace of the Spirit being utterly sweet and kind. The message given was/is powerful and is healing more of my wounded heart, but the most powerful piece of this is that I was given The Word of Life to the exact pin point of pain that I couldn’t even articulate in this state. Healing Love met me on my bed of sickness and pain AGAIN! What wonderous Love!

Surely This One Who Loves You Most is there with you at every moment. What might The Whisper be to you today?

LOVE ALLWAYS,   Lorie

To Sister Sara in San Fran.

Photo from Lindell Beach/lm 2014