Kitty Crenshaw's Blog, page 19
April 24, 2019
April 25
We have to learn to trust the darkness of new birth. We don’t always see it but new life is being birthed; it is underneath the darkness and pain. ~Betty
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April 17, 2019
Caught Between the Nails
Oh, Good Jesus,
Hear me, hold me, love me
in this, the season of
my spirit’s loss and grieving,
in the anguish of my waiting,
in the silence of familiar voices gone,
in the pain of all the change,
in the twilight of my years
before Perfection dawns
and I am gone.
Oh, Good Jesus,
I try the letting go,
to understand my weakness,
to trust You in my darkness,
to make room for Your grace to heal.
Yet there is no return,
only the echo of my own crying.
It seems I, too, with You,
am caught between the nails.
Oh, Good Jesus,
in this holy place of crucifixion,
broaden the boundaries of my heart.
Soften the hard places that
defend, define and deny.
Teach my heart to love.
Make it a refuge for others
who, too, are caught
between the nails.
BWS
painting by Francisco de Zurbarán. Art Institute of Chicago
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April 10, 2019
April 11
Freedom comes from a wisdom that transcends the intellect. It is an un-knowing, a letting-go of all we have known and falling deeply in love with God in Whose heart we finally find rest. ~Betty
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April 3, 2019
Petals in the Dew
“Joy” by Dana Cunningham
Jesus, my Beloved, it’s Spring again.
I am Your prisoner, captured
In its sweet song,
In its warmth and fragrance,
In all the beauty new life brings.
Waves of infinite tenderness
Wash over me and all of Creation.
Your Divine Look has penetrated my heart.
You only do I see.
It is my soul itself I offer Thee.
Dear Redeemer, I long to gather
The blooms from each lovely flower
And scatter their petals in the dew
At the feet of Your Calvary.
I would so like to reach up
And dry Your tears.
Please know my sighs, my sorrows,
My joys, my little sacrifices
Given in flames of love.
These are my Spring flowers,
my petals in the dew.
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March 27, 2019
March 28
It is the discipline of returning in stillness to simply be with God in the deep silence, allowing the Light to pour into us, listening for the whispers of the Spirit, that opens the possibility of our transformation. ~Betty
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March 20, 2019
The Great Divorce
C.S. Lewis was one of the intellectual giants of the twentieth century, a rare genius who was not only an acknowledged master of Christian apologetics but possessor of a vivid religious imagination that created some of the world’s most beloved fairy tales and space odysseys. He was Chair of Medieval and Renaissance Literature at Cambridge University and author of many acclaimed classics such as Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters, and The Chronicles of Narnia. To date, the Narnia books have sold over 100 million copies.
The Great Divorce is a fantastic theological dream that opens at a bus stop on the murky streets of Hell. The narrator and a group of grumbling ghosts are taken on a journey by flying bus to a magnificently beautiful place that they realize is the forecourt of Heaven. There the ghosts are met by a number of “Bright People” who try to convince the poor souls to turn away from their ingrained self-perceptions and negative behaviors and choose to change in order to escape their misery in Hell and enter Heaven. Each time, though, the ghosts refuse to stay, and walk back to the bus. They refuse to let go of how they always were in life. This is a fascinating and deeply sad representation of the way a soul, even at the end, clings desperately to its old ways rather than make the choice for life.
There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, in the end, ‘Thy will be done.’
The Great Divorce
And this from our friend and mentor, Betty Skinner, on page 67 of The Hidden Life Awakened:
I thought a lot about the story of Jesus at the pool of Bethesda. In my mind, I saw Him walking slowly toward me among all of those sick people. They all believed that if they could get into that water, they could be healed. He stepped over many people, stopping and speaking quietly to others, but I couldn’t hear what He was saying. As He got closer, I could see the tears in His eyes. Like the crippled man Jesus spoke to by the pool, I had been lying there for too many years, full of excuses for why I couldn’t get up and move toward healing. When He finally came to me, He said, ‘Betty, do you want to get well?’ and I said, ‘Yes, Lord.’ Then He took my hand and said to me very tenderly, ‘I will give you the strength. Now take up your bed and walk. Do your work.’ I was mercifully brought to a choice between life and death. It was a severe mercy, but it was sweet; and I chose life.
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March 12, 2019
March 13
To live a spiritual life is to live in the presence of God. To do this, the heart must be emptied of all other things. ~ Betty
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March 7, 2019
A Letter From Betty
Dear Ones
As always in the morning quiet here in my little room in the nursing home, my heart and thoughts are filled with a special warmth; a closeness and sweetness that transcends the distance and separation from you and those I love. This love flows into my heart from His Presence and brings you near as I lift and hold you and offer you to God. God’s order, God’s rhythm, Christ’s presence with me here, has been so affirming, so refreshing, so nourishing to me, and hopefully, through me as His servant, to all of His people who have come and gone throughout my many years. Those friendships are a beautiful treasure to me. They found their life in Him Who is eternal. To be nourished by Him through another is life’s greatest gift. Its quality is beyond description; for only those who possess it can understand it.
The whole discipline of life is to enable us to enter into this deep intimacy with Jesus and, through Him, become ever more free, and real, and loving in all of our relationships. As we begin to discern the Spirit of God calling us to drop the walls that have separated us from Him and the hearts of others, to become vulnerable and intimate with another, we can know that it is our dear Lord leading us to a higher place. From there, we ask God to unravel the mystery of the other’s heart, so we might learn to love them more perfectly; and as He does, He begins to unravel the mystery of our own heart as well. In our quest for this great love, we, as His servants, must be ever more disciplined, ever more discerning, ever more obedient, ever more loving to Him who is Life in full abundance.
I want you to know, dear friends, in this special moment in time, that this love will fill every abyss of your heart’s longings. All of your pain, all of your struggles, all of your surrenders, all of your prayers, become priceless as you offer them back to God, and through Him, to another.
In obedience then, and in His all-compelling love, a simple message—yet ever so profound—from His heart, through my heart, to your heart. ~Betty
Listen to the sweetness of Betty reading her lovely Centering Prayer on our site.
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February 28, 2019
March 1
Relax into your tears, allowing them to soften and empty your heart, bringing you into the tender intimacy of Christ’s suffering and the depths of the meaning of hope and shared humanity. ~Betty
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February 21, 2019
Forget Others
To forget others means to forget how we have defined and labelled them. They are neither who we think they are nor who they think they are. The deepest truth about them is that they are God’s beloved creation, but because they don’t know that yet, they act in any way they think protects them from the world. We then label them based on those surface actions. In order to become free enough to see others with the eyes of Love, we have to forget them as we have seen them, let go of our need to define and control, and stop judging their value by the yardstick of our own very finite minds.
Compassion can never coexist with judgement because judgement creates distance from the other. It prevents us from being available to people and shrivels our compassion. Compassion is a willingness to see and share in the sufferings of others: “Come, be with me in my passion.” We cannot enter sincerely into the trials of others until we have first experienced the power of redemptive love in our own lives. Then, as we learn to embrace our own pain, we become united with the suffering of all humanity. It is in this mystery of co-suffering that hope is hidden.
Solitude allows us the space to become aware of God’s merciful and healing presence with and in us and of who we all truly are minus the veil of the persona we have created to survive in the world. Solitude and silence molds self-righteous people into gentle, caring, humble, and forgiving people. Finally, we become free from all judgements, our whole being fills with God’s compassionate light, and we see what is deepest in another.
“When we defend ourselves, define another person or situation, or deny our culpability, we cease to see things as they really are. A situation that we label as terrible is, in reality, to be used in some mysterious way for our good. We might label a woman a snob because she is too beautiful or successful, so we never see her heart. A child might be giving us a difficult time, so we label him ‘a problem child’ and relate to him from that place, never seeing his heart or our part in the problem. That child belongs to God. We need to trust Him to be as creative with our children as He has been with us. We get so caught up in competing, comparing, and controlling that there is no hope of love. Only those who have confronted their pride and come to humility fully experience harmony in relationship with God, with others, and with self. Such harmony then opens an infinite vastness for others to move about freely in. Remember that love always takes the initiative. Love affirms and honors the dignity of each human soul. Love feels no power or superiority in the humiliation and desecration of another fellow sufferer. Jesus was unjustly condemned by the mob, but He didn’t defend Himself. He kept silent, and His silence enabled a far greater good. Stretched out on the cross, He turned toward the universe with utter forgiveness. “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.”
page 128 The Hidden Life Awakened
Sculpture by Augusta Savage
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