On love:
Love is the beginning and ending of all our work and the enfolding mantle in which all the gifts of the Spirit are cherished and protected. This love is not merely a gift, it is a whole way of life. We can not receive it in full unless we give it forth to others, especially to those who have injured us. "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us." This is the only petition (or affirmation) in the Lord's Prayer that is conditional. Why? Because of our nature, because of the way we are made. The mind and the body so interrelate that unforgiveness acts as a poison within us, and this is so no matter how worthy the cause over which we fret and fume. The bodily results of fury are quite evident: we lose our appetite, we can neither eat nor digest, the nerves tighten in spine and head, the mind is confused, the knees shake; the whole body is out of line with life, which is love because God is love. The effects of our usual feelings of a dull resentment and an old bitterness are even more devastating because they are not so obvious, but they eat upon the body like a slow poison. We express this in our common speech: "Something's eating on him"; "It gives me a pain the the neck"; "I can't stomach it"; "You make me sick," and so forth. --- Agnes Sanford, The Healing Gifts of the Spirit, p. 89-90.

I have been praying much lately about opening my heart to love, learning to give and receive love on deeper and deeper levels. I am shocked at my guardedness and resistance to the very thing I so long for! It is as though there is a private unseen gate whose opening and closing is beyond my volition, and my soul reacts in ways both curious and unwanted. Most often this sounds like a smashing slam of the gate, but sometimes it is more like a creak, a prolonged eerie prelude to the clanking of the lock. I read recently about Jesus being the gate. So I ask Him to meet me in the garden of my soul and there to stand watch at the gate, to help me to both let love in and out, as well as to discern wisely when to wait and watch with wisdom since not all loves are true and most, like roses, come with thorns.

Recently I sensed the Lord drawing me to places where I can send forgiveness and love back up through the generations of my family on both sides, then out to other family members, and back down through the years of my life to those who I have hurt or who have hurt me. I don't know how long this road will be, but I hope to stay true to it. As I walk it I sense more freedom of heart, and the truest gift of love: JOY.

I have prayed so long for healing of my body, and while that is being accomplished in measurable ways in these days, I am increasingly aware that this also means healing of my soul, since body and soul are inextricably linked. In my first treatment stint in Kansas (for Lyme disease, last August), I felt disappointed because one of the doctor's sessions was more dealing with the issues of my soul than my body. I complained to the Lord: "He didn't even treat me today!" Then the Lord said, loud and plain: "Did you come here to get treated or did you come here to be healed?" I was stunned and quieted. "I came here to be healed," I said. "Well, then, that was part of it," was the answer I heard back. "Oh."

So often when God speaks, the clear best response is "Oh." It's a bit like the selah response from the psalms; the idea of being quiet and letting the truth soak in to the recesses of your being, letting it become a part of you, rather than skipping on the next activity or idea. I've been saying "OH" a lot lately.

I went to Kansas again in December, having not felt well at all for much of November, and fighting a sticky heavy feeling that no matter what I do, I will not be well in spirit or body. After fours months in treatment in Kansas (twice) and Germany, I was beyond "thinking positive" about my health situation. As I was praying during this my third visit, I sensed the Lord continuing the above conversation. It was as though the Lord said, "Remember the last converastion about your healing? Well, I asked you to expect to be completely and miraculously healed. However, I did not bring you here to heal you, but to transform you."

"Oh." I am still thinking about that one.