Cleansing My Life Quotes

One word more. You look as if you thought it tainted you to be loved by me. You cannot avoid it. Nay, I, if I would, cannot cleanse you from it. But I would not, if I could. I have never loved any woman before: my life has been too busy, my thoughts too much absorbed with other things. Now I love, and will love. But do not be afraid of too much expression on my part.

I will greet this day with love in my heart. And how will I do this? Henceforth will I look on all things with love and be born again. I will love the sun for it warms my bones; yet I will love the rain for it cleanses my spirit. I will love the light for it shows me the way; yet I will love the darkness for it shows me the stars. I will welcome happiness as it enlarges my heart; yet I will endure sadness for it opens my soul.

Today I hit rock bottom but didn’t busy myself with activity to take my mind off it, like I usually do. I allowed myself to sink as deep as possible. It’s like an infection: let it run its course and be done with it. Rising, I felt cleansed.

Natasha has just come up to the window from the courtyard and opened it wider so that the air may enter more freely into my room. I can see the bright green strip of grass beneath the wall, and the clear blue sky above the wall, and sunlight everywhere. Life is beautiful. Let the future generations cleanse it of all evil, oppression and violence, and enjoy it to the full.

Cleanse me and renew a right spirit within me so that I don’t resist what You desire to do in my life. I humble myself before You. I surrender my will and my way, knowing Your plans are always best. As I seek You daily in prayer, keep my heart right before You so I will not miss out on anything You want to bring into my life. In the name of Jesus, amen.

I am walking to the light. As I walk to the light to cleanse my soul, I want you to know that all I ever wanted you to do was to…

This is not a psychotic episode. This is a cleansing moment of clarity. I'm imbued, Max. I'm imbued with some special spirit. It's not a religious feeling at all. It's a shocking eruption of great electrical energy. I feel vivid and flashing, as if suddenly I'd been plugged into some great electromagnetic field. I feel connected to all living things. To flowers, birds, all the animals of the world. And even to some great, unseen, living force. What I think the Hindus call prana. But it's not a breakdown. I've never felt more orderly in my life. It is a shattering and beautiful sensation. It is the exalted flow of the space-time continuum, save that it is spaceless and timeless and... of such loveliness. I feel on the verge of some great, ultimate truth.

॥दोहा॥ श्रीगुरु चरन सरोज रज, निज मनु मुकुरु सुधारि। बरनउँ रघुबर बिमल जसु, जो दायकु फल चारि॥ Doha With the dust of guru’s lotus feet having, I cleanse the mirror of my soul sparkling, Raghuvar’s spotless glory I be singing, The four fruits of life it ever is giving. - 303 -

Oh, child, my child, if only you realized who you truly are.

[Letter to his wife, Natalia Sedova] In addition to the happiness of being a fighter for the cause of socialism, fate gave me the happiness of being her husband. During the almost forty years of our life together she remained an inexhaustible source of love, magnanimity, and tenderness. She underwent great sufferings, especially in the last period of our lives. But I find some comfort in the fact that she also knew days of happiness. For forty-three years of my conscious life I have remained a revolutionist; for forty-two of them I have fought under the banner of Marxism. If I had to begin all over again I would of course try to avoid this or that mistake, but the main course of my life would remain unchanged. I shall die a proletarian revolutionist, a Marxist, a dialectical materialist, and, consequently, an irreconcilable atheist. My faith in the communist future of mankind is not less ardent, indeed it is firmer today, than it was in the days of my youth. Natasha has just come up to the window from the courtyard and opened it wider so that the air may enter more freely into my room. I can see the bright green strip of grass beneath the wall, and the clear blue sky above the wall, and sunlight everywhere. Life is beautiful. Let the future generations cleanse it of all evil, oppression and violence, and enjoy it to the full.

You didn’t win. You didn’t win the overall battle. I did, because I am making the choice to forgive you and let go of your wicked ways. I am walking to the light. As I walk to the light to cleanse my soul, I want you to know that all I ever wanted you to do was to…

God knows we have our own demons to be cast out, our own uncleanness to be cleansed. Neurotic anxiety happens to be my own particular demon, a floating sense of doom that has ruined many of what could have been, should have been, the happiest days of my life, and more than a few times in my life I have been raised from such ruins, which is another way of saying that more than a few times in my life I have been raised from death - death of the spirit anyway, death of the heart - by the healing power that Jesus calls us both to heal with and to be healed by.

Washed and waiting. That is my life – my identity as one who is forgiven and spiritually cleansed and my struggle as one who perseveres with a frustrating thorn in the flesh, looking forward to what God has promised to do. That is what this book is all about.

Every day is an opportunity to stand in awe when witnessing the overpowering presence of nature, an apt time to pay reverence for the inestimable beauty of life. I must remain mindful to live in an ethical manner by paying attention to the threat of injustice towards other people and resist capitulating to the absurdity of being a finite body born into infinite space and time. I am part of the world, a spar in a sacred composition, a body of energy suspended in the cosmos. I seek to create a poetic personal testament to life. When I pivot and turn away from fixating upon the cruel artifices of my encysted orbit to face and outwardly embrace the cleansing swirl of heaven’s windmill, I feel gusting in the shank of my marrow the thump of onrushing primordial truths, the electric flush of those ineffable couplets of life that one may not utter.

Leaving home is living as though I do not yet have a home, and must look far and wide to find one. Home is the center of my being, where I can hear the voice that says, “You are my beloved. On you my favor rests,” the same voice that gave life to the first Adam and spoke to Jesus, the second Adam. The same voice that speaks to all the children of God and sets them free to live in the midst of a dark world while remaining in the light. I have heard that voice. It has spoken to me in the past and continues to speak to me now. It is the never-interrupted voice of love speaking from eternity and giving life and love wherever it is heard. When I hear that voice, I know that I am home with God and have nothing to fear. As the beloved of my heavenly Father, “I can walk in the valley of darkness: no evil would I fear.” As the beloved I can “cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out devils.” Having “received without charge,” I can “give without charge.” As the Beloved, I can confront, console, admonish, and encourage without fear of rejection or need for affirmation. As the Beloved I can suffer persecution without desire for revenge and receive praise without using it as a proof of my goodness. As the Beloved I can be tortured and killed without ever having to doubt that the love that is given to me is stronger than death. As the Beloved I am free to live and give life, free also to die while giving life. Jesus has made it clear to me that the same voice that he heard at the river Jordan and on Mount Tabor can also be heard by me.

Heavenly Father, I come to You in Jesus’ name, asking that You draw me into a closer, more personal relationship with You. Cleanse me of my sins and prepare my heart to pray in a way that pleases You. Help me know You and love You more this week. Use all the circumstances of my life to make me more like Jesus, and teach me how to pray more strategically and effectively in Your name, according to Your will and Your Word. Use my faith, my obedience, and my prayers this week for the benefit of others, for my good, and for Your glory. Amen.

Still the dream persists, suppressed but always there, that somehow by some miraculous effort of the heart what was done could be undone. What form would such atonement take that would turn back time and bring the dead to life? None. None possible, not in the real world. And yet in my imaginings I can clearly see this cleansed new creature steaming up out of myself like a proselyte rising drenched from the baptismal river amid glad cries.

My life had been characterized by emptiness the size of the Sahara but there, in that moment, in the back of that truck in the armpit of Nicaragua, I wondered—for the first time—if there wasn’t a river flowing down deep inside me. If so, the water that would cleanse me was not water from my head—where I’d learned to rationalize my indifference. But water from my heart.

many is the time the poor fellows, just buttoning the necks of their clean frocks, are startled by the cry of "There she blows!" and away they fly to fight another whale, and go through the whole weary thing again. Oh! my friends, but this is man-killing! Yet this is life. For hardly have we mortals by long toilings extracted from this world's vast bulk its small but valuable sperm; and then, with weary patience, cleansed ourselves from its defilements, and learned to live here in clean tabernacles of the soul; hardly is this done, when—There she blows!—the ghost is spouted up, and away we sail to fight some other world, and go through young life's old routine again.

We don’t look at the sky anymore, instead we stare at boxes that keeps us captive; we don’t walk barefoot any more, we refuse to kiss the earth with our feet, we keep busy worrying and fearing, we exist and die, like robots we work and consume. We ignore the beauty of a butterfly and the power of the eagle, we have forgotten the scent of flowers, we are too busy to enjoy nature, we are plastic most of the time; we live together but we do not connect, we are asleep. I want to cleanse myself of societies’ noise, walk barefoot, and kiss the earth with my feet, I want look at the sky, and like my ancestors, I want to feel free. I want to rejoice of who I am, and what I will become.

The sea cleanses the city's rat race from my pores Washes away the anxiety of wanting more Reminds me I am not here to stay And being in love with the pulse is all

He began to stand, and saw Lyon stiffen, poised to do whatever he needed to do. He, like Lyon, could throw himself on a pyre, too. Because fire cleansed. She’d won, and he’d lost. It had stopped mattering. Her happiness was indistinguishable from his own. No matter what became of him, he wanted her to know he loved her. “You’d best get out of here, Redmond. Your secret is safe with me.” Lyon’s eyes flared in wary surprise. He froze. And his smile, when it came, was slow, and crooked, and he looked very like Lavay when Lavay was being insufferably knowing. “Ah. You do love her more than life. Splendid. And that, my dear Lord Flint, is what I came here today to discover.” Whatever he felt was between him and Violet. “Go before I change my mind, Redmond.

But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name. John 1:12 Divine sonship is not something that we gain of ourselves. Only to those who receive Christ as their Saviour is given the power to become sons and daughters of God. The sinner cannot, by any power of his own, rid himself of sin. For the accomplishment of this result, he must look to a higher Power. John exclaimed, "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world." Christ alone has power to cleanse the heart. He who is seeking for forgiveness and acceptance can say only,-- "Nothing in my hand I bring; Simply to Thy cross I cling." But the promise of sonship is made to all who "believe on his name." Every one who comes to Jesus in faith will receive pardon. The religion of Christ transforms the heart. It makes the worldly-minded man heavenly-minded. Under its influence the selfish man becomes unselfish, because this is the character of Christ. The dishonest, scheming man becomes upright, so that it is second nature to him to do to others as he would have others do to him. The profligate is changed from impurity to purity. He forms correct habits; for the gospel of Christ has become to him a savor of life unto life. God was to be manifest in Christ, "reconciling the world unto himself." Man had become so degraded by sin that it was impossible for him, in himself, to come into harmony with Him whose nature is purity and goodness. But Christ, after having redeemed man from the condemnation of the law, could impart divine power, to unite with human effort. Thus by repentance toward God and faith in Christ, the fallen children of Adam might once more become "sons of God." When a soul receives Christ, he receives power to live the life of Christ.

Gregori stood his ground, his mind carefully blank. This was his life. His reason for existing. He was the dark justice necessary for his people to survive, to continue their existence in secrecy.He stood there in the night, utterly, completely alone. Gregori, I am with you always. You are never alone.Look for me in your heart, in your mind, in your very soul. Look at your hero now.See what I really am. I kill without thought. Without effort. Without remorse.Without mercy. I am the monster you named me, and I am without equal.Someday I will pay the ultimate price. Savannah's soft laughter whispered over his skin. It was a gentle, cleansing breeze drifting through his mind. And who is stronger than my lifemate? No one can kill you? You think death is the ultimate price? No, Savannah. Someday you will know what I am, and you will look at me in horror and revulsion. When that day comes, I will cease to exist.

I'm driving slowly, careful to avoid speeding through life - my life - no longer wasting my summers waiting for snow, my winters waiting for sun, taking each season as it comes, appreciating the warmth of the sun, the cleansing of the snow.

In light of this, my visits with Morrie felt like a cleansing rinse of human kindness. We talked about life and we talked about love. We talked about one of Morrie's favourite subjects, compassion and why our society had such a shortage of it.

Worse were the disaster tourists: those whom I didn’t know well but who came out of the woodwork, showing up unannounced at my hospital room door with an overzealous desire to help or to bear witness to the medical carnival that my life had become. They would gape at my bald head, all misty-eyed, and I’d find myself having to console them. Or they’d bombard me with unsolicited medical advice, telling me about a great doctor they knew or a friend of a friend who’d cured their own cancer with things like essential oils, apricot kernels, coffee enemas, or a juice cleanse. I knew that most meant well and were doing the best they knew how, so I smiled and nodded, but I was silently fuming. As I got sicker, fewer and fewer came—and when they did, I began pretending to be asleep.

Nothing searches and cleanses the heart like true prayer. It teaches one to ask such questions as these: Do I really desire what I pray for? Am I willing to cast out everything to make room for what God is prepared to give me? Is the prayer of my lips really the prayer of my life?

Do you know why the lotus is one of my favorite flowers?" I cocked my head to one side so I could see his expression. He shook his head. "This beautiful flower lives in the most vile, muddy water of swamps and bogs," I said and rubbed the smooth metal of the pendant between my fingers. He frowned. "No, seriously... the grosser the environment, the better," I said. "So let me get this straight. You like a flower that lives in disgusting places?" One of his eyebrows rose. "That ain't right." "No, I love this flower," I corrected. He glanced at me out of the corner of his eye, "Seriously?" "What?" You don't believe me?" "Sure, I believe you. It's just weird." "I'll tell you why, but only if you promise not to laugh," I said. He nodded. Taking a cleansing breath, I rested my head against the seat, closed my eyes, and took that scary first step. "This flower stays in the mud and muck all night long." I peeked at him without moving my head. His face had become set in the smooth lines of one who listens intently. "Then, at sunrise, it climbs toward the light and opens into a pristine bloom. After the sun goes down, the bloom sinks into the mire. Even though it spends the whole night underwater, the flower emerges every morning as beautiful as the day before." Smiling, I swiveled in my seat to face him. "I love this flower because it reminds me that we get second chances every day, no matter what muck life drags us through.

Everyday i get closer to our meeting i feel like i've been walking this path for a thousand years towards you.. and yet i'm still not there so close, and yet so far but i keep walking despite the tears despite the wind despite the skinned knees and broken bones despite the bruises and scars that made this heart what it is today i keep walking towards you there's only one direction one direction: towards you... from you, to you i have nothing else nothing that is my poverty i keep walking because behind every sun's setting is a rising behind every storm is a refuge behind every fall is a rise behind every tear is a cleansing of the eyes and in every spot i've ever been stabbed, is a healing and the creation of skin stronger than it was i keep walking because WALLAHI i've nothing but your mercy i've nothing but your promise your words your promise that: يَا أَيُّهَا الْإِنسَانُ إِنَّكَ كَادِحٌ إِلَىٰ رَبِّكَ كَدْحًا فَمُلَاقِيهِ - 84:6 O mankind, indeed you are laboring toward your Lord with [great] exertion and will meet it. [Quran 84:6]

I know that whatever the complex origins of my own homosexuality are, there have been conscious choices I've made to indulge - and therefore to intensify, probably - my homoerotic inclinations. As I look back over the course of my life, I regret the nights I have given in to temptations to lust that pulsed like hot, itching sores in my mind. And so I cling to this image - washed. I am washed, sanctified, justified through the work of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. Whenever I look back on my baptism, I can remember that God has cleansed the stains of homosexual sin from the crevasses of my mind, heart, and body and included me in his family, the church, where I can find support, comfort, and provocation toward Christian maturity.

So I shall make my tribute a plea for Keepers of the Springs, who will be faithful to their tasks. There never has been a time when there was a greater need for Keepers of the Springs, or when there were more polluted springs to be cleansed. If the home fails, the country is doomed. The breakdown of home life and influence will mark the breakdown of the nation. If the Keepers of the Springs desert their posts or are unfaithful to their responsibilities the future outlook of this country is black indeed. This generation needs Keepers of the Springs who will be courageous enough to cleanse the springs that have been polluted. It is not an easy task—nor is it a popular one, but it must be done for the sake of the children, and the young women of today must do it.

Latter-day Saints are far from being the only ones who call Jesus the Savior. I have known people from many denominations who say those words with great feeling and deep emotion. After hearing one such passionate declaration from a devoutly Christian friend, I asked, “From what did Jesus save us?” My friend was taken aback by the question, and struggled to answer. He spoke of having a personal relationship with Jesus and being born again. He spoke of his intense love and endless gratitude for the Savior, but he still never gave a clear answer to the question. I contrast that experience with a visit to an LDS Primary where I asked the same question: “If a Savior saves, from what did Jesus save us?” One child answered, “From the bad guys.” Another said, “He saved us from getting really, really, hurt really, really bad.” Still another added, “He opened up the door so we can live again after we die and go back to heaven.” Then one bright future missionary explained, “Well, it’s like this—there are two deaths, see, physical and spiritual, and Jesus, well, he just beat the pants off both of them.” Although their language was far from refined, these children showed a clear understanding of how their Savior has saved them. Jesus did indeed overcome the two deaths that came in consequence of the Fall of Adam and Eve. Because Jesus Christ “hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light” (2 Timothy 1:10), we will all overcome physical death by being resurrected and obtaining immortality. Because Jesus overcame spiritual death caused by sin—Adam’s and our own—we all have the opportunity to repent, be cleansed, and live with our Heavenly Father and other loved ones eternally. “Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow” (Isaiah 1:18). To Latter-day Saints this knowledge is basic and fundamental—a lesson learned in Primary. We are blessed to have such an understanding. I remember a man in Chile who scoffed, “Who needs a Savior?” Apparently he didn’t yet understand the precariousness and limited duration of his present state. President Ezra Taft Benson wrote: “Just as a man does not really desire food until he is hungry, so he does not desire the salvation of Christ until he knows why he needs Christ. No one adequately and properly knows why he needs Christ until he understands and accepts the doctrine of the Fall and its effects upon all mankind” (“Book of Mormon,” 85). Perhaps the man who asked, “Who needs a Savior?” would ask President Benson, “Who believes in Adam and Eve?” Like many who deny significant historical events, perhaps he thinks Adam and Eve are only part of a folktale. Perhaps he has never heard of them before. Regardless of whether or not this man accepts the Fall, he still faces its effects. If this man has not yet felt the sting of death and sin, he will. Sooner or later someone close to him will die, and he will know the awful emptiness and pain of feeling as if part of his soul is being buried right along with the body of his loved one. On that day, he will hurt in a way he has not yet experienced. He will need a Savior. Similarly, sooner or later, he will feel guilt, remorse, and shame for his sins. He will finally run out of escape routes and have to face himself in the mirror knowing full well that his selfish choices have affected others as well as himself. On that day, he will hurt in a profound and desperate way. He will need a Savior. And Christ will be there to save from both the sting of death and the stain of sin.

Oh Allah, distance me from my sins just as You have distanced the east from the west. Oh Allah, purify me of my sins as a white robe is purified of filth. Oh Allah, cleanse me of my sins with snow, water, and ice.”10 Oh Allah, I lovingly await Your invitation to come visit You, both in this life and the next. I place my hope in Your mercy and place my trust in Your perfect timing. In Your generous names I pray, Ameen.

The Party's all-around intrusion into people's lives was the very point of the process known as 'thought reform." Mao wanted not only external discipline, but the total subjection of all thoughts, large or small. Every week a meeting for 'thought examination' was held for those 'in the revolution." Everyone had both to criticize themselves for incorrect thoughts and be subjected to the criticism of others.The meetings tended to be dominated by self-righteous and petty-minded people, who used them to vent their envy and frustration; people of peasant origin used them to attack those from 'bourgeois' backgrounds. The idea was that people should be reformed to be more like peasants, because the Communist revolution was in essence a peasant revolution. This process appealed to the guilt feelings of the educated; they had been living better than the peasants, and self-criticism tapped into this.Meetings were an important means of Communist control. They left people no free time, and eliminated the private sphere. The pettiness which dominated them was justified on the grounds that prying into personal details was a way of ensuring thorough soul-cleansing. In fact, pettiness was a fundamental characteristic of a revolution in which intrusiveness and ignorance were celebrated, and envy was incorporated into the system of control. My mother's cell grilled her week after week, month after month, forcing her to produce endless self-criticisms.She had to consent to this agonizing process. Life for a revolutionary was meaningless if they were rejected by the Party. It was like excommunication for a Catholic. Besides, it was standard procedure. My father had gone through it and had accepted it as part of 'joining the revolution." In fact, he was still going through it. The Party had never hidden the fact that it was a painful process. He told my mother her anguish was normal.At the end of all this, my mother's two comrades voted against full Party membership for her. She fell into a deep depression. She had been devoted to the revolution, and could not accept the idea that it did not want her; it was particularly galling to think she might not get in for completely petty and irrelevant reasons, decided by two people whose way of thinking seemed light years away from what she had conceived the Party's ideology to be. She was being kept out of a progressive organization by backward people, and yet the revolution seemed to be telling her that it was she who was in the wrong. At the back of her mind was another, more practical point which she did not even spell out to herself: it was vital to get into the Party, because if she failed she would be stigmatized and ostracized.

Oh! my friends, but this is man-killing! Yet this is life. For hardly have we mortals by long toilings extracted from this world's vast bulk its small but valuable sperm, and then, with weary patience, cleansed ourselves from its defilements, and learned to live here in clean tabernacles of the soul; hardly is this done, when--There she blows!--the ghost is spouted up, and away we sail to fight some other world, and go through young life's old routine again.

One of the things you can do as a confident woman is apply the blood of Jesus Christ by faith to your household. I do this regularly. I apply it to my own life, my mind, emotions, will, body, conscience, spirit, finances, relationships, my walk with God, my husband, children and their families, co-workers and all the partners of Joyce Meyer Ministries. I do this by praying and releasing my faith that there is indeed power in the blood of Jesus to cleanse and protect.

In Fez Yasmin had another dream. „I saw myself in a shower. Water poured over me, washing and purifying me and I was told ‚All your sins have been washed away by that water. You‘ve been cleansed. Your sins have been washed away and you‘re blessed.‘ „I feel that Allah has been knocking on my door for some time now, perhaps all my life. ‚But you just haven‘t recognized Me‘, He says, ‚You haven‘t recognized Me. You keep waiting but I have been there all along.‘“ (p.195)

I do not know everything. I do not have the answers you seek. I cannot do more than cleanse and heal your mind and spirit. I cannot take you from this place or change the past that has brought you here. I can only love you and remind you of this one, small rule that I have tried to live my life by: I cannot control others. I can only control myself and my reactions to others. And when all else fails, I choose kindness. I show compassion. Then, if I have made poor choices, I have at least not damaged my spirit.

In The Divine Comedy, Dante described purgatory as a place where the soul is cleansed of all impurities, It is known as a place where suffering and misery are felt to be sharp, but temporary. This for me was what it felt like to have one foot in the new, strange land of sobriety and the other firmly, desperately, in my old life. The is what it feels like for all of us, I think, when we have only half-decided to own our thing, When we have only half-surrendered, only half-committed to becoming different... I thought about how anything would be better than this. This purgatory. This unbearable wishing for one side or another. This unsustainable stretching. My inevitable crash landing. I was going to have to pick a side. The same is true for all of us when it comes to our things. We have to pick a side, If we ever want out of purgatory, we have to decide if we are going back to a life of denial and secrecy and hiding and gripping onto the thing we do not know how to live without, or if we are going to take a stab at doing a thing we have never done before.

I have been speaking to you all of your life. In the gurgle of a tide pool, I breathed myself into you. I drew you down from the trees and I lifted you onto your feet. I freed your hands to become your tools so that you would cradle me in my old age, but you have turned on me. My strongest warrior for life, you have been transformed into an insatiable messenger of death. Only a few of my children are still listening when I howl to them, crying in the night, sending the oceans in great surges to cleanse my land -- to cleanse, and to warn you who no longer listen. I WILL BE HEARD.

Maybe our life is an affair of coastlines, of touching on contours, of sand shifting underfoot, of footprints straying a shoreline. No epitaph in granite, no marble eminence, no limestone subtlety. Tracking my prints back is recovering tides’ clean sweep, the cleansing services of storms’ and winds’ abrasive erasures. The only line that matters in the end is forward since home is what we find when we find what it is, they say. Still, standing on the edge of stone seven thousand kilometres wide, my back to a whole past vivid to my eyes, I wonder why, here, it should suddenly begin.

truth many times with students, observing how many respond to that revelation with utter panic. “What should I do? How do I cleanse myself of that?” I have to laugh. Do you think a few organic vegetables will somehow separate you from the fundamental design of life—that all is one? My suggestion, as I have said to so many, is that when you feel anxiety and stress building up in your energy system, do not assume that it is necessarily yours. You may be channeling collective anxiety and stress, breathing collective psychic free radicals generated by all of us. Grace, generated through prayer, is the antidote.

Once they leave to see to their other duties, I go to stand before the fire, feeling once again as if I have been completely upended and remade anew, when in truth, I have barely caught my breath from the first time my life shattered before my eyes. But this- this is different. This is no shattering, but rather some great knitting together of the broken pieces into a stronger whole. I feel cleansed, not only of sin- but of artifice. I am stripped down to nothing but my raw self. As uncomfortable as it makes me feel, there is freedom in it as well, for there is no place left for others' expectations and desires of me to hide.

The Alchemist’s Prayer “Oh, most singular and unspeakable Presence, first and last in the universe, heighten the fury of my fire and burn away the dross of my being. Cleanse my soiled soul. Bathe me in your awesome Light. Set me free from my past; cut me loose from my boundaries. Unite me with the One Thing hidden in my life, where in is my only strength. Fill me with your Presence. Allow me to see through your Eye; grant me entry to your Mind; let me resonate with your Sacred Will. Make me transparent to your flame, and fashion me into a lens for your Light only. Transmute me into an incorruptible Stone in your eternal service, like the Golden Light that surrounds you.

I have heard people covering their sins by saying they are not religious, but I tell you this; it is better to love God Almighty and live a healed and protected long life that knows and honours God Almighty instead of groaning in pain and living hopelessly troubled lives because of incurable diseases. Be humble and open your heart to Jesus Christ and find mercy, stability, peace and salvation for you and your children. Do not live a lost life in this day and age where disasters, terminal, rare and chronic illnesses are devouring people's lives. Be wise and seek the Lord God Almighty for healing, cleansing and divine protection.Row your boat of life in Christ and move to the top

Sinner’s Prayer Heavenly Father, I come to you in prayer asking forgiveness for my sins. I believe that Jesus died for my sins and was resurrected sitting on the right hand of the Father. Through Jesus, I believe I have eternal life. I believe that His death and resurrection provided for my forgiveness. I trust in Jesus and Jesus alone as my personal Lord and Savior. Thank you Lord, for saving me and forgiving me! I ask you right now to come into my heart and I give you my life. I accept Jesus as my personal savior. I confess with my mouth that I am born again. Fill me with your Holy Spirit and cleanse me Lord. Make me new in you. I receive your Holy Spirit and can begin a new life now in you Jesus. Help and guide me daily to read your word and to walk with you God. In Jesus’ name Amen.

Dear After the rain, How are you doing today? Are you angry? Are you crying? Or are you releasing what doesn’t serves you anymore? For years now, I’ve been so angry. I know you all know me by now because there have been plenty of times when you hid my tears. Memories used to linger in the raindrops. However, today, there is something different in the air. It is like nothing I’ve ever experienced before. I feel the light... and it is peeking in. Soon my heart will be shining bright, filled with a downpour of love and light. I feel it in my energy that Nurse Hope's love will be drenching Kace and me from head to toe. The clouds are turning dark grey. They look very familiar. They used to be clouds of grief. As the grey clouds darken, the sky turns black, but I have no fear. The rain has cleared the air and has washed away all the fears I carried along the way. I happily and gently put my fears down because they do not serve me anymore. The thunder has shaken Kace’s and my fears—and they no longer linger on. They do not have a place in my mind anymore. As of today, the rain has washed them away. The lightning has made its mark and stuck love into Kace’s and my life. I know and have faith that it will be permanent. The heavy rain clouds are moving away slowly. When the heart rains, it is cleansing the soul. When the heart rains, hurt fades away. My heart is raining, and happy days are one step in front of me. All I have to do is take that one step that will lead me to happiness and love. I do not look back. I keep my head straight and move one foot in front of the other. I just stepped into a world of happiness. I am drenched in love and loving it.

Hence the need for living daily and hourly and every moment at the very place of beginnings, ever as a child depending upon Him, and ever as one of the weakest of those who love Him, abiding in Him. It is a glorious thing to know that my cleansing and illumination depend upon Him, and that the whole of my responsibility in this matter is marked by my maintaining personal relationship with Him. This, however, is inexorable. Daily personal communion there must be, and the means of such, study of His word, waiting upon Him in prayer, the cultivation of close fellowship, by telling Him everything—joys as well as sorrows—and the periods of silence in which the soul simply waits and listens in the stillness for His voice, these cannot be neglected without a film, a veil, a cloud, a darkness coming between the soul and Himself, and so hindering the possibility of advancement.

In the land of Uz, there lived a man, righteous and God-fearing, and he had great wealth, so many camels, so many sheep and asses, and his children feasted, and he loved them very much and prayed for them. 'It may be that my sons have sinned in their feasting.' Now the devil came before the Lord together with the sons of God, and said to the Lord that he had gone up and down the earth and under the earth. 'And hast thou considered my servant Job?' God asked of him. And God boasted to the devil, pointing to his great and holy servant. And the devil laughed at God's words. 'Give him over to me and Thou wilt see that Thy servant will murmur against Thee and curse Thy name.' And God gave up the just man He loved so, to the devil. And the devil smote his children and his cattle and scattered his wealth, all of a sudden like a thunderbolt from heaven. And Job rent his mantel and fell down upon the ground and cried aloud, 'Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return into the earth; the Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord for ever and ever.' Fathers and teachers, forgive my tears now, for all my childhood rises up again before me, and I breathe now as I breathed then, with the breast of a little child of eight, and I feel as I did then, awe and wonder and gladness. The camels at that time caught my imagination, and Satan, who talked like that with God, and God who gave His servant up to destruction, and His servant crying out: 'Blessed be Thy name although Thou dost punish me,' and then the soft and sweet singing in the church: 'Let my prayer rise up before Thee,' and again incense from the priest's censer and the kneeling and the prayer. Ever since then - only yesterday I took it up - I've never been able to read that sacred tale without tears. And how much that is great, mysterious and unfathomable there is in it! Afterwards I heard the words of mockery and blame, proud words, 'How could God give up the most loved of His saints for the diversion of the devil, take from him his children, smite him with sore boils so that he cleansed the corruption from his sores with a pot-sherd - and for no object except to board to the devil! 'See what My saint can suffer for My Sake.' ' But the greatness of it lies just in the fact that it is a mystery - that the passing earthly show and the eternal verity are brought together in it. In the face of the earthly truth, the eternal truth is accomplished. The Creator, just as on the first days of creation He ended each day with praise: 'That is good that I have created,' looks upon Job and again praises His creation. And Job, praising the Lord, serves not only Him but all His creation for generations and generations, and for ever and ever, since for that he was ordained. Good heavens, what a book it is, and what lessons there are in it! What a book the Bible is, what a miracle, what strength is given with it to man! It is like a mold cast of the world and man and human nature, everything is there, and a law for everything for all the ages. And what mysteries are solved and revealed! God raises Job again, gives him wealth again. Many years pass by, and he has other children and loves them. But how could he love those new ones when those first children are no more, when he has lost them? Remembering them, how could he be fully happy with those new ones, however dear the new ones might be? But he could, he could. It's the great mystery of human life that old grief passes gradually into quiet, tender joy. The mild serenity of age takes the place of the riotous blood of youth. I bless the rising such each day, and, as before, my heart sings to meet it, but now I love even more its setting, its long slanting rays and the soft, tender, gentle memories that come with them, the dear images from the whole of my long, happy life - and over all the Divine Truth, softening, reconciling, forgiving!

MARCH 14 I WILL CLEANSE YOUR LIFE FROM SECRET FAULTS MY CHILD, BE aware of the danger of trying to hide your faults or actions from Me, for I see the hidden secrets in your heart. Nothing can be hidden from the light of My presence. You were once darkness, but now you are light in Me. Live as children of light (for My light consists in all goodness, righteousness, and truth) and find out what pleases Me. Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. Everything exposed by My light becomes visible, for it is light that makes everything visible. Be very careful how you live—not as unwise by as wise—making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. PSALM 19:12–13; JEREMIAH 23:24; EPHESIANS 5:8–16 Prayer Declaration Lord, cleanse my life from secret faults. I renounce secret and shameful ways. I will not use deception, nor will I distort the Word of God. The only thing that I will hide in my heart is the Word of God, so that I might not sin against You.

First, READ this book a chapter a day. We suggest at least five days a week for the next seven weeks, but whatever works for your schedule. Each chapter should only take you around ten minutes to read. Second, READ the Bible each day. Let the Word of God mold you into a person of prayer. We encourage you to read through the Gospel of Luke during these seven weeks and be studying it through the lens of what you can learn from Jesus about prayer. You are also encouraged to look up and study verses in each chapter that you are unfamiliar with that spark your interest. Third, PRAY every day. Prayer should be both scheduled and spontaneous. Choose a place and time when you can pray alone each day, preferably in the morning (Ps. 5:3). Write down specific needs and personal requests you’ll be targeting in prayer over the next few weeks, along with the following prayer: Heavenly Father, I come to You in Jesus’ name, asking that You draw me into a closer, more personal relationship with You. Cleanse me of my sins and prepare my heart to pray in a way that pleases You. Help me know You and love You more this week. Use all the circumstances of my life to make me more like Jesus, and teach me how to pray more strategically and effectively in Your name, according to Your will and Your Word. Use my faith, my obedience, and my prayers this week for the benefit of others, for my good, and for Your glory. Amen. May we each experience the amazing power of God in our generation as a testimony of His goodness for His glory! My Scheduled Prayer Time ___:___ a.m./p.m. My Scheduled Prayer Place ________________________ My Prayer Targets Develop a specific, personalized, ongoing prayer list using one or more of the following questions: What are your top three biggest needs right now? What are the top three things you are most stressed about? What are three issues in your life that would take a miracle of God to resolve? What is something good and honorable that, if God provided it, would greatly benefit you, your family, and others? What is something you believe God may be leading you to do, but you need His clarity and direction on it? What is a need from someone you love that you’d like to start praying about? 1. ______________________________________________ 2. ______________________________________________ 3. ______________________________________________ 4. ______________________________________________ 5. ______________________________________________ 6. ______________________________________________

MAY 20 WHEN YOUR SINS WEIGH HEAVILY upon you, come to Me. Confess your wrongdoing, which I know all about before you say a word. Stay in the Light of My Presence, receiving forgiveness, cleansing, and healing. Remember that I have clothed you in My righteousness, so nothing can separate you from Me. Whenever you stumble or fall, I am there to help you up. Man’s tendency is to hide from his sin, seeking refuge in the darkness. There he indulges in self-pity, denial, self-righteousness, blaming, and hatred. But I am the Light of the world, and My illumination decimates the darkness. Come close to Me and let My Light envelop you, driving out darkness and permeating you with Peace. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. —1 JOHN 1:7 I delight greatly in the LORD; my soul rejoices in my God. For he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. —ISAIAH 61:10 When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” —JOHN 8:12

The median age in Gaza is very young. Earlier you spoke of asking your father for stories about your grandfather, and how important that was for you. But there are fewer and fewer people who have memories of life outside of Gaza. I’m wondering if you can say something about this. Unfortunately, it’s not only about memories of our grandparents, but it’s also their memories that are being lost, those are what we need to hear and memorize and then transmit to our children and grandchildren. But I’m also so saddened to think about my generation, our memories, being required or expected to tell our own stories of what happened to us in Gaza. I mean, for example, in 2021, 2014, 2009, or 2008. All the massacres and attacks on Gaza. Maybe our grandchildren will not ask us about Jaffa and Acre and Haifa. No, they will ask us about the 2014 war. What happened to you? What did you eat, which of your friends was wounded, did you leave your home, where did you go? This is a prolonged state of exile and estrangement and expulsion and ethnic cleansing. Our grandparents were driven from their homes and their cities, and any trace of them has been erased and replaced by something else, which is now called Israel. But we, their descendants, were also robbed of our right to dream and think about those places—no, instead, we are forced to live in the nightmares of our own current life. And they are creating more misery for us, wounding us again and again, so that we forget those earlier wounds in the face of the fresher wounds. The more the Israelis attack us, the more they are trying to erase the older memories. So it also becomes a matter of exhaustion.

The Lord saw fit to lead me some time by simple faith—a childlike dependence on the Word of God. And then, when I was emptied of self, I was filled with glory and with God. For the first time in my life, my soul was continually satisfied. My need was all supplied. Oh, the fulness of Jesus ! I was saved, fully saved from sin. Years have passed since I received from the Lord the blessing I sought of him—entire sanctification. During that time, oh, what a change has taken place in me. I am no longer the desponding, unhappy creature I was. I do not now grow weary of life. I love to have the will of God done; and as long as he sees fit to keep me here, I am willing to stay. Surely, I am a wonderful “miracle of grace.” The Lord has indeed done great things for me, whereof I am glad. I have often thought I was a poor, unworthy creature, but I have never known my unworthiness as I know it now. Oh, how I have been led to loathe myself; and how I have sunk in self-abasement at the foot of the cross, completely overwhelmed with a view of self. And oh, how sweet to have Jesus take me, and wash me in his own precious blood, and realize that I am cleansed. Oh, how fully Jesus does save. My greatest desire now, is to live for Jesus; to glorify him by my looks, my actions, my walk, and even the tones of my voice. I am led to see my own weakness more and more each day, and this leads me to look to Jesus each moment. And when, in view of my vileness, I am led to exclaim: ‘* Every moment, Lord, I need, The merit of Thy death,” I can, by divine grace, triumphantly add : ” Every moment, Lord, I have The merit of Thy death. I am, indeed, A poor sinner, and nothing at all, But Jesus Christ is my all in all.

In your war, the first, how did you endure?" asked Sebastian. "My war was nothing," said Hilary hastily, "nothing at all compared with yours, or even David's. Yet I had a way, then, that helped with other things later. For there is always the Thing, you know, the hidden Thing, some fear or pain or shame, temptation or bit of self-knowledge that you can never explain to another. . . . And even in those very few healthy insensitives who do not seem to suffer, a love of something—of their work, perhaps—that they would not want to talk about and could not if they would. For it is the essence of it that it is, humanly speaking, a lonely thing. . . . Returning to the sensitives, if you just endure it simply because you must, like a boil on the neck, or fret yourself to pieces trying to get rid of it, or cadge sympathy for it, then it can break you. But if you accept it as a secret burden borne secretly for the love of Christ, it can become your hidden treasure. For it is your point of contact with Him, your point of contact with that fountain of refreshment down at the root of things. "Oh Lord, thou fountain of living waters.' That fountain of life is what Christians mean by grace. That is all. Nothing new, for it brings us back to where we were before. In those deep green pastures where cool waters are there is no separation. Our point of contact with the suffering Christ is our point of contact with every other suffering man and woman, and is the source of our life. " "You could put it another way," said Sebastian. "We are all the branches of the vine, and the wine runs red for the cleansing of the world." "The symbols are endless," agreed Hilary. "Too many, perhaps. They complicate the simplicity of that one act of secret acceptance and dedication.

Put yourself in the way of grace,' says a friend of ours, who is a monk, and a bishop; and he smiles his floating and shining smile. And truly, can there be a subject of more interest to each of us than whether or not grace exists, and the soul? And, consequent upon the existence of the soul, a whole landscape of incorruptible forces, perhaps even a source, an almost palpably suggested second universe? A world that is incomprehensible through reason? To believe in the soul---to believe in it exactly as much and as hardily as one believes in a mountain, say, or a fingernail, which is ever in view---imagine the consequences! How far-reaching, and thoroughly wonderful! For everything, by such a belief, would be charged, and changed. You wake in the morning, the soul exists, your mouth sings it, your mind accepts it. And the perceived, tactile world is, upon the instant, only half the world! How easily I travel, about halfway, through such a scenario. I believe in the soul---in mine, and yours, and the blue-jay's, and the pilot whale's. I believe each goldfinch flying away over the coarse ragweed has a soul, and the ragweed too, plant by plant, and the tiny stones in the earth below, and the grains of earth as well. Not romantically do I believe this, nor poetically, nor emotionally, nor metaphorically except as all reality is metaphor, but steadily, lumpishly, and absolutely. The wild waste spaces of the sea, and the pale dunes with one hawk hanging in the wind, they are for me the formal spaces that, in a liturgy, are taken up by prayer, song, sermon, silence, homily, scripture, the architecture of the church itself. And as with prayer, which is a dipping of oneself toward the light, there is a consequence of attentiveness to the grass itself, and the sky itself, and to the floating bird. I too leave the fret and enclosure of my own life. I too dip myself toward the immeasurable. Now winter, the winter I am writing about, begins to ease. And what, if anything, has been determined, selected, nailed down? This is the lesson of age---events pass, things change, trauma fades, good fortune rises, fades, rises again but different. Whereas what happens when one is twenty, as I remember it, happens forever. I have not been twenty for a long time! The sun rolls toward the north and I feel, gratefully, its brightness flaming up once more. Somewhere in the world the misery we can do nothing about yet goes on. Somewhere the words I will write down next year, and the next, are drifting into the wind, out of the ornate pods of the weeds of the Provincelands. Once I went into the woods to find an almost unfindable bird, a blue grosbeak. And I found it: a rough, deep blue, almost black, with heavy beak; it was plucking one by one the humped, pale green caterpillars from the leaves of a thick green tree. Then it vanished into the shadows of the leaves and, in the same moment, from the crown of the tree flew a western bluebird---little aqua thrush of the mountains, hundreds of miles from its home. It is a moment hard to top---but, I can. Once I came upon two angels, they were standing quietly, keeping guard beside a car. Light streamed from them, and a splash of flames lay quietly under their feet. What is one to do with such moments, such memories, but cherish them? Who knows what is beyond the known? And if you think that any day the secret of light might come, would you not keep the house of your mind ready? Would you not cleanse your study of all that is cheap, or trivial? Would you not live in continual hope, and pleasure, and excitement?

Who May Enter? Who may worship in your sanctuary, Lord? Who may enter your presence on your holy hill? Those who lead blameless lives and do what is right, speaking the truth from sincere hearts. Psalm 15:1-2 When we kneel at the altar, we present our hearts in reverent worship to God. It is our inward sacrifice of praise. In these verses the psalmist presents another side of worship—the worship that praises God with our lives. We offer this type of worship when we live in integrity and honesty in everyday situations. We offer it when we treat others with fairness in business deals and speak highly of others no matter who is listening. When we avoid the bitter tongue of gossip, tell the truth instead of resorting to a lie, or keep a promise we have made even at great cost, we are showing that our lives are a living sacrifice of worship to God. I’m thankful that we don’t have to be perfect to worship God. No one is without fault. However, when we endeavor to worship God through the way we live our lives, we offer him more than a show of worship. We present him with a heartbeat that sincerely desires to please him. Ask God today to help you live in such a way that your life is an offering of praise to his name. GOD, I am far from perfect, but I desire to serve you in integrity and honesty. I realize that others watch my life and that my daily decisions influence others. I pray that they will see you in both my words and my actions. Lord, I sincerely desire to worship you not only with my heart but with my character. Help me to live a blameless life. Only you can do this. May I speak your truth from a sincere heart so that you will receive the glory and honor you deserve.   THE HEART THAT IS NOT ENTRUSTED TO GOD FOR HIS SEARCHING, WILL NOT BE UNDERTAKEN BY HIM FOR CLEANSING. Frances Ridley Havergal (1836-1879)

always close my books with my 10 Commandments for Looking Young and Feeling Great. 1. Thou shalt love thyself. Self-love is essential to survival. There is no successful, authentic relationship with others without self-love. We cannot water the land from a dry well. Self-love is not selfish or self-indulgent. We have to take care of our needs first so we can give to others from abundance. 2. Thou shalt take responsibility for thine own health and well-being. If you want to be healthy, have more energy, and feel great, you must take the time to learn what is involved and apply it to your own life. You have to watch what goes into your mouth, how much exercise and physical activity you get, and what thoughts you’re thinking throughout the day. 3. Thou shalt sleep. Sleep and rest is the body’s way of recharging the system. Sleep is the easiest yet most underrated activity for healing the body. Lack of sleep definitely saps your glow and instantly ages you, giving you puffy red eyes with dark circles under them. 4.Thou shalt detoxify and cleanse the body. Detoxifying the body means ridding the body of wastes and toxins so that you can speed up weight loss and restore great health. Releasing toxins releases weight. 5. Thou shalt remember that a healthy body is a sexy body. Real women’s bodies look beautiful! A healthy body is a beautiful body. It’s about getting healthy and having style and confidence and wearing clothes that match your body type. 6. Thou shalt eat healthy, natural, whole foods. Healthy eating can turn back the hands of time and return the body to a more youthful state. When you eat natural foods, you simply look and feel better. You keep the body clean at the cellular level and look radiant despite your age. Eating healthy should be part of your “beauty regimen.” 7. Thou shalt embrace healthy aging. The goal is not to stop the aging process but to embrace it. Healthy aging is staying healthy as you age, which is looking and feeling great despite your age. 8. Thou shalt commit to a lifestyle change. Losing weight permanently requires a commitment to changes . . . in your thinking, your lifestyle, your mind-set. It requires gaining knowledge and making permanent changes in your life for the better! 9. Thou shalt embrace the journey. This is a journey that will change your life; it’s not a diet but a lifestyle! Be kind and supportive to yourself. Learn to applaud yourself for the smallest accomplishment. And when you slip up sometimes, know that it is okay; it is called being human. 10. Thou shalt live, love, and laugh. Laughter is still good for the soul. Live your life with passion! Never give up on your dreams! And most important . . . love! Remember that love never fails! Now that you have experienced the power of healthy living, be sure to share your success story with others and help them to reclaim their health and vitality.

In Your presence is fullness of joy and peace that passes all understanding. Let Your grace and mercy be a healing balm to my heart. Your forgiveness cleanses and purifies my soul.

Lord, I would trust Thee completely; I would be altogether Thine; I would exalt Thee above all. I desire that I may feel no sense of possessing anything outside of Thee. I want constantly to be aware of Thy overshadowing Presence and to hear Thy speaking Voice. I long to live in restful sincerity of heart. I want to live so fully in the Spirit that all my thought may be as sweet incense ascending to Thee and every act of my life may be an act of worship. Therefore I pray in the words of Thy great servant of old, "I beseech Thee so for to cleanse the intent of mine heart with the unspeakable gift of Thy grace, that I may perfectly love Thee and worthily praise Thee." And all this I confidently believe Thou wilt grant me through the merits of Jesus Christ Thy Son. Amen.

THE PILGRIM'S WANTS.' "'I want a sweet sense of Thy pardoning love, That my manifold sins are forgiven; That Christ, as my Advocate, pleadeth above, That my name is recorded in heaven. "'I want every moment to feel That thy Spirit resides in my heart— That his power is present to cleanse and to heal, And newness of life to impart. "'I want—oh! I want to attain Some likeness, my Saviour, to thee! That longed for resemblance once more to regain, Thy comeliness put upon me. "'I want to be marked for thine own— Thy seal on my forehead to wear; To receive that new name on the mystic white stone Which none but thyself can declare. "'I want so in thee to abide As to bring forth some fruit to thy praise; The branch which thou prunest, though feeble and dried, May languish, but never decays. "'I want thine own hand to unbind Each tie to terrestrial things, Too tenderly cherished, too closely entwined, Where my heart so tenaciously clings. "'I want, by my aspect serene, My actions and words, to declare That my treasure is placed in a country unseen, That my heart's best affections are there. "'I want as a trav'ller to haste Straight onward, nor pause on my way; Nor forethought in anxious contrivance to waste On the tent only pitched for a day. "'I want—and this sums up my prayer— To glorify thee till I die; Then calmly to yield up my soul to thy care, And breathe out in faith my last sigh.

Keith came from behind his desk and put his arm around my shoulder. "Calm down, Marco,” he said, leading me to the more comfortable love seat. “There's an un-blending process happening here. The various defender parts have a positive intention in defending against the pain from the abuse. It just happens to be in an incorrect manner.” Keith returned to his seat and leaned back in his chair. He took a deep breath. “When you're concentrating on one particular personality trait, the other parts work in conjunction, in different combinations with each other. They try to prevent you from getting to the core of the respective trait and having to relive the pain and shame from the abuse.” He leaned forward, punctuating his words. “The key ... to un-blending ... the defender parts ... successfully ... is to understand each attribute ... as it steps in to do its job. They protect you from the harmful emotions that are associated from the abuse.” Gazing at me over his wire-rimmed glasses, he said matter-of-factly, “Getting the defender parts to step aside so you can concentrate on the characteristic you want to address is the un-blending process. Once you are able to get through all the various defensive parts that get in the way of dealing with the core part, the true self is now able to answer the part in question in a divine loving place." I sat, pulled on my ear while thinking that over for a moment. "So, the true self is present to bear witness to all the feelings, beliefs, memories, and experiences of the inadequate part." Keith smiled. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the desktop, his chin perched atop his clasped hands. "In essence, the past is being stirred up so all the associated burdens, pressures, and pain can be released and relieved. Following this unburdening process, the respective part can be cleansed. It can then be recomposed in a more constructive manner—similar to wiping a virus-infected computer hard drive clean ... then reprogramming it with anti-virus protected software." I stood up. With a few deep diaphragmatic breaths, I cleared my mind. While attempting to decipher what part came in and threw me off course, I sucked in my lips, vigorously shaking my head. Skepticism came in as a defensive part. I got back in Keith’s face. “This psychological un-blending is full of shit. The defense against the abuse is another trick to get me to believe that this crap actually works.” I flung my hands in the air. “How is this going to unburden the weight I carry on my shoulders every moment of the day? All my deficient personality traits are a result of me being a dirtball loser.” I shook my head. “I’m not worthy of the slightest bit of solace or happiness that this punishment called life has to offer.” Keith took a deep breath in and a longer breath out. "Marco, you're a miracle. A remarkable good-hearted human being. You're the most determined individual that I've come across in my thirty years of practice.

I was now able to logically decipher my behavior and analyze my actions. I understood all the conditioning that the exploitation and disgrace had in creating the different personality parts and behavioral traits that dwelt in my depths. I started to understand how criticism and insults painfully intensified my ignominious impression of myself, causing me to take everything personally. The numb, confused, and skeptic defender parts now made sense to me. I could see how they contributed to the various problems I incurred throughout my life. I comprehended why I mistrusted and did pernicious things to loved ones—for fear they would do them to me first. The need to self-medicate made sense. I began to recognize the urge for porn. The need to commit acts of perversion was a result of my adolescent mind being manipulated and programmed to believe it was acceptable. I perceived that the reason why I wanted to be humiliated sexually was because the shameful part from the humiliation of the maltreatment wanted to be reinforced. The logic of it all—how all the parts fit together, their roles and reasons for being—became apparent to me. I opened my eyes for a brief moment. Keith was leaning forward with his right elbow resting on his leg, his hand supporting his chin, staring at me as if he was trying to analyze my thoughts. I gazed off in a distance, remembering my numerous misbehaviors. I could trace the main contributing factor for why I acted the way I did to the resulting ignominy from the desecration. But the most significant understanding I had was, that even though it wasn’t my fault, I was still responsible for my behavior. My lengthy musings came to a halt when Keith said, “Marco? Where are you now ... tell me what you’re seeing, thinking.” I proceeded to explain to him my current revelation. “Excellent work, Marco,” Keith said, cracking a smile. “Now think about your next step.” My next step was to cleanse and reprogram the inadequate part. I closed my eyes again and began to concentrate. The only way to accomplish this was to create a tangible picture in my mind of the inadequate part being exorcised of all its imperfect characteristics. Once I was able to concentrate on this step, I looked up into his gaze. “I see myself overlooking a canyon during a sunset. As the sun descends, I envision its rays reflecting off the sparse layers of cloud cover, creating a beautiful multi-layer spectrum of blazing colors. I imagine a cool breeze flowing across my body, as a warm illuminating light from above shines on me and creates a white-out effect that is the cleanest, brightest white I can imagine. I picture the whiteness as a soothing cleansing treatment for the blackness within. I’m feeling as pure and clean as the brilliant color itself.” "And now how do you want to orchestrate the inadequate part?" I stood up and puffed out my chest. "I want it to be the exact opposite—confident, strong, and stable. It should be at peace with itself and not paranoid about what other people think.” Sitting back down, I folded my hands over my crossed knees. “I don't want to feel as if I have to worry about working to exhaustion in my personal life. On the job, or in the gym, I shouldn’t feel I have to be perfect in order to be accepted in society. I want to move past that. I want to feel good and proud of myself. But most of all, I want to feel morally acceptable." I now had a better understanding of the inadequate part, its defender parts, and what they wanted. I was able to see the un-blending taking place within me. The unburdening and bearing witness process got me to the point of reprogramming the misconception that the inadequate part thought about itself. I could go straight to the visualization technique of cleansing and reprogramming the part whenever I felt its symptoms coming on. CHAPTER

She had taught me to put down my angry facade and actually be angry. She had taught me that tears have a place in my life-- that they could help me understand myself better and cleanse my shame.

I loved the life of a soldier, simple as could be, free of worldly concerns, ambitions, and interests. It had been months since I'd received the least bit of news of the scuffle of the Forum. The viperous swarm of office seekers, the temptations and dishonesties of the political arena sickened me. I preferred my filthy isba to the ministerial palaces, my worn trooper's jacket to the stifling comfort of middle class mediocrity. As I looked at the pure eyes of my soldiers, cleansed by sacrifice, I felt rising toward me the wholesome gift of their ideal. I gave them, from my side, all that burned in my heart.

I've never been one to freely laugh and often found those who did rather annoying. Life isn't a joke - not for me. And yet I want to swim in the sound of Sophie's laughter, let it cleanse me and wash away all the heaviness in my life.

The truth is that some days I feel I am ready for freedom and other days I am so tired I don’t want the responsibility it brings into my life. I want a rest from choosing, from trying to increase my ability to choose wisely. And then, in a moment of grace, I am given a certainty: if I never did one more meditation, ceremony, workshop, therapy session, course, or cleansing diet, never attended one more meeting or participated in one more community cause, never wrote another line... it would be okay. It would truly be okay. For a moment, as I fully feel this revelation, I am free to move toward what I love.

I stayed and felt the enormous noise vibrate through my body. Chills ran through me, and I shivered with the unceasing sounds, which were cleansing me, coursing through my veins, through my mind and my spirit. The tenor and the fifth ringing together, not synchronized or in harmony but in perfect sublime sound. My boundaries dissolved; transcendence enveloped me. God was with me, and always had been. He was in the earth and the wind, in the ringing and in the silence, in the pain and in the glory of my life. Those bells rang for a full five minutes, but an eternity in my soul.

I cannot deny that my life is better, a thousand times better, than anything I ever knew in the Underdark. And yet, I cannot remember the last time I felt the anxiety, the inspiring fear, of impending battle, the tingling that can come only when an enemy is near or a challenge must be met. Oh, I do remember the specific instance—just a year ago, when Wulfgar, Guenhwyvar, and I worked the lower tunnels in the cleansing of Mithral Hall— but that feeling, that tingle of fear, has long since faded from memory. Are we then creatures of action? Do we say that we desire those accepted cliches of comfort when, in fact, it is the challenge and the adventure that truly give us life? I must admit, to myself at least, that I do not know. There is one point that I cannot dispute, though, one truth that will inevitably help me resolve these questions and which places me in a fortunate position. For now, beside Bruenor and his kin, beside Wulfgar and Catti-brie and Guenhwyvar, dear Guenhwyvar, my destiny is my own to choose. I am safer now than ever before in my sixty years of life. The prospects have never looked better for the future

I cannot deny that my life is better, a thousand times better, than anything I ever knew in the Underdark. And yet, I cannot remember the last time I felt the anxiety, the inspiring fear, of impending battle, the tingling that can come only when an enemy is near or a challenge must be met. Oh, I do remember the specific instance—just a year ago, when Wulfgar, Guenhwyvar, and I worked the lower tunnels in the cleansing of Mithral Hall— but that feeling, that tingle of fear, has long since faded from memory. Are we then creatures of action? Do we say that we desire those accepted cliches of comfort when, in fact, it is the challenge and the adventure that truly give us life? I must admit, to myself at least, that I do not know. There is one point that I cannot dispute, though, one truth that will inevitably help me resolve these questions and which places me in a fortunate position. For now, beside Bruenor and his kin, beside Wulfgar and Catti-brie and Guenhwyvar, dear Guenhwyvar, my destiny is my own to choose. I am safer now than ever before in my sixty years of life. The prospects have never looked better for the future, for continued peace and continued security. And yet, I feel mortal. For the first time, I look to what has passed rather than to what is still to come. There is no other way to explain it. I feel that I am dying, that those stories I so desired to share with friends will soon grow stale, with nothing to replace them. But, I remind myself again, the choice is mine to make. –Drizzt Do’Urden

In Sedona, as I drove from the sweat lodge back to the room I was renting, I felt exhilarated. My excitement wasn’t only about the experience I had just been through. For so long I had limited my choices, limited my freedom. I was thrilled that I was finally giving myself permission to live more fully. Have you been limiting your choices, telling yourself there are only a few options available? Have you been limiting your choices, saying you’ve seen and done everything you can in this world? Have you been limiting yourself and your life, then wondering why life is so limiting? Set yourself free. Give yourself permission to experience and taste more of life. You are here to live your life—fully, richly, passionately. The journey has been about more than cleansing, healing, and spiritual growth. You have a body, emotions, passion, and thought. You are here to bring all parts to life, to connect the parts, and to fully live your life. Partake of the abundance of the universe. You’re sitting at a banquet table. Let yourself feast. Move on from monitoring, watching, limiting. Experience all of life that you can. June

Lord, I confess my anger today and ask You to please cleanse my heart of the deep resentment, bitterness, and injury I feel. They run so deep, Father—and the strength of those feelings alarms me at times. I know that this situation is not only about how I was wronged or the person who hurt me. It touched a profound place within me that needs healing,

I shall live I shall be free Goddess goddess I am thee... Mother Goddess, keep me whole Let thy beauty fill my soul Maiden Goddess, keep me whole Let thy power fill my soul Crone Goddess, keep me whole Let thy wisdom fill my soul... Blessed be the Maiden within me For she bringeth courage and freedom Blessed be the Mother within me For she bringeth love and life Blessed be the Crone within me For she bringeth wisdom and understanding... We are the flow, we are the ebb We are the weavers, we are the web... I am whole unto myself Centered in the Kore of me I shall give and shall receive Goddess goddess loves me... Let my magic be. Let all illness Be cast from me Cleansed of all impurity Free from all wrongs I may have done 'Til goodness And love And I Are one...

Routine was death of the worst kind, a slow, insidious stripping of soul. Rarely could I even bring myself to run the same route on subsequent days; more rarely did I run at the same time every day. Sometimes I'd venture out first thing in the morning, other times during midday, still others in the evening or at night. I wasn't made to fit the modern industrialized world; my natural rhythms ran contrary to the nine-to-five business cycle. And I didn't always find people the preferred company. Not that I was antisocial, but being by myself wasn't unpleasant. Running alone was something I relished most of my life, even more so as I'd become older. Most runners prefer to run alone, so these habits are not entirely aberrant. The world and its institutions engulf and suffocate us. We runners find our sanctuary in retreating to the roadways and trails, our sacred reprieve. The wonder isn't that we go; it's that we come back. Our daily outings become purgings and resurrections. We move through this world as spirits, the air and the ground and the sky above absorbing us into something grander, and we disappear from the unbearable heaviness of being. These moments of transcendence cleanse our soul and liberate us from the manufactured and superficial. For a brief, beautiful instant we are as a human is meant to be, free and unencumbered, and this restores us and makes us fresh once more. And then it's on to the follies of being a citizen, of being a useful and contributing member of society. Back to the fickleness and irrationality of human nature and the roller coaster of modern living, with its spirals and twists, letdowns and disappointments. As soon as there are people involved, things get complicated, and rarely do they go the way you want them to. Over a lifetime, nos greatly outnumber the yeses. But the strong endure. The lessons you learn from running translate to life. The runner has a strong body and a strong heart. You get knocked down, you pick yourself back up, dust off, and keep going, only to get knocked down again, only to pick yourself back up once more and continue on, arising one time greater than toppling. And in this persistent enduring you acquire endurance. Your permanence is established in this way because you do not unseat easily, you have what it takes to withstand setbacks. You may waver and misstep, but you never give up. No matter how daunting the obstacle, you forge onward and keep chipping away until that barrier is eventually obliterated and overcome. p97

In the end, he could find only one reason to be pure, and that is what Jesus presented in the Beatitudes: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.” In Mauriac’s words, “Impurity separates us from God. The spiritual life obeys laws as verifiable as those of the physical world. . . . Purity is the condition for a higher love — for a possession superior to all possessions: that of God. Yes, this is what is at stake, and nothing less.” Reading François Mauriac’s words did not end my struggle with lust. But I must say beyond all doubt that I have found his analysis to be true. The love God holds out to us requires that our faculties be cleansed and purified before we can receive a higher love, one attainable in no other way. That is the motive to stay pure. By harboring lust, I limit my own intimacy with God.

words spoken by Rebecca Barlow Jordan: I absolutely believe you have the power to heal. You demonstrated that on earth, and you still heal in miraculous ways today. Even when my faith is weak, you say it is enough, and my love for you is strong. And I know you already hold my heart and life in your hands. It’s up to you. If I can bring you more glory through healing, then that’s what I ask for. That’s what I desire. But if your answer is no, or not now, I know that your grace is sufficient for me. Ultimately, I want your will to be my will. I look forward to spending an eternity with you. But Lord, if you have planned still more for me to do here on this earth, I not only need and want your physical healing, Lord, but a thorough, deep-down cleansing and strengthening—a whole-hearted renewal of all that I am. Because all that I am is yours. Use this trial to strengthen me from a “what-if” faith to a “no-matter-what” faith. And no matter what, I choose to honor you and give you glory. In Jesus’s name, Amen.

The slanting rays of the autumn sun, the coldness of spring water, the towering trees, the birds, the aquatic creatures, the reptiles, and the flow of life! In a moment, I surrendered myself to the icy water that burned to the bone! I loved the cold, but feared it at the same time. When the air is cold, when your being is frozen, you will experience a kind of coma that enforces justice. When in life, pleasure has been withheld from you, the cold also takes away the joy of expressing your pain. I looked at the sky, my wandering mind and free spirit fled to the Arctic and Antarctic! It’s cold and frozen there too. Always cold, and sometimes dark for long periods! I wanted to surrender my whole being to the frost, to let complete suppression and endless cold dominate me! I was overwhelmed. If awareness is a match, then doctrines, religions, every group, sect, country, and ideology, are other matches to ignite hell for you! Awareness, spirituality, humanity, or simply put, absolute perfection and beauty, I imagine as being seven layers deep in hell, while compounded ignorance feels like a clear and moderate sky. The middle ground wasn’t for me, so I found the only solution was to seal hell and bury it under thousands upon thousands of icy stones! At that moment, as my body shivered in the spring water, my soul hovered around the Arctic and Antarctic. Ah, another spark, another thought of winter creeping into my mind! My mind said, the Arctic and Antarctic, over time, through the sun’s rays or human filth, will eventually fall and melt, what if someone arrives with unconditional love and pulls you back to that same hell? I was tired of empty words and impossible thoughts, but my mind was right! I remembered the sky, the sky always holds an answer! Mars! That was it, Mars! Mars, which billions of years ago was a cradle of life! What did it do? It lost its atmosphere due to its cold core, and the sun’s kindness wiped life away into space. The remaining water froze somewhere inside it, and never flowed again. Oh, my Mars, you are my role model. First, I must destroy awareness and render it useless, then I’ll seek out love to cleanse what remains of my emotions and let it go. But Mars, what should I do with the flowing waters of love that will freeze inside me? What if one day a madman from nowhere comes and gets the idea to revive me, seeking refuge in me? #Arash_Ghadir #ArashGhadir

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Voyagers, I’ve always wanted to write about you. And now, at 4:41 a.m. on an autumn morning, Words have found their way into my mind. I picture myself like you— Distant from life, Alone, Yet moving towards an unknown destination! Like you, in the early stages of my journey, I could see, I could gather knowledge and transmit it, I was useful and efficient. But sometimes, to keep connected to the world, To be able to stay on course and conserve my energy, I had to shut parts of myself down, To survive, To go blind, to be deaf, to be isolated, and just occasionally signal my existence to the world. The same thing I do, that you do, that so many others do. The boundless reaches of space Have become somewhat more comprehensible through you, Yet the depths of the human soul remain unfathomable, And its pain incurable. We live in an age surrounded by a torrent of information, Yet somehow, we remain lonely and lost. Language has advanced, There are words for nearly everything, Everyone can describe their own state of mind, yet we’re still at war with one another. Earth has turned into a vast ship, Perhaps like Noah’s Ark, With maximum diversity and multiplicity, Yet everyone on this ship plays their own tune, rallies their own cause! Someone steps forward, claiming each individual’s thoughts and personal benefit are like rare pearls to be cherished, While another insists that collective welfare takes precedence, That the needs of the masses outweigh individual desires. Some launch movements to claim their rights, While others start movements to flaunt the rights they’ve acquired. No one knows what they truly want; We’re all still lost. I don’t know how Earth looks from afar— Perhaps like a blueberry-flavored lollipop, A lollipop with a stick, But Earth’s stick is an invisible one made of sorrow. I find something common among all the passengers on this ship, All the inhabitants of this blueberry lollipop: sorrow. A fetus in its mother’s womb is also like a lollipop, But connected by an umbilical cord. As a fetus, Growing in the mother’s womb, Suffering, malnutrition, and physical ailments can be painful for us. If the mother’s state is stable, We may enjoy brief periods of security and calm, but after that, We must endure the pain of separation, Learn how to breathe, And besides the sorrow of leaving security behind, We face new emotions like fear and anger. Later in life, We each take our own path. No matter how much they try to show humans as social creatures, It’s always the individual who walks their own way, who has the freedom to choose, Even if one finds the meaning of their path in joining a group or a collective, it’s their individual choice that put them on that path. Today, people have countless options to join others who are like them, And these options themselves bring confusion, And when you join a group out of confusion, You treat the other groups with hostility. Science, philosophy, religion, politics…each of them has thousands of branches, and each branch Wants to disprove the other, cleanse itself of its shameful past. Freedom of speech has become an excuse for verbal assaults and psychological wounds, Non-violence has become a breeding ground for new and emerging dictators, For heartless sects and brutal factions. Knowledge and science alone cannot save us, Just as religion couldn’t. I don’t want to write about chaos, Life isn’t that disorganized, In some corner of the world, A lover is staring up at his beloved’s window, A child is laughing joyfully. But writing about sorrow, Speaking of chaos and Asking questions can reveal where we stand. Now, we know so much about space, And about the Sun, too. The James Webb telescope has mapped out the cosmos for us, and countless projects are underway for the future, crafted with flawless precision and extraordinary coherence, but the rift between humans remains deep.

Food tastes better 2.               My skin has a sheen and radiance to it 3.               I sleep better 4.               Sex is better 5.               I don’t get winded as easily 6.               My sense of smell has improved one hundred fold 7.               My concentration is better 8.               My heart rate is normal 9.               My blood pressure is normal 10.           My clothes don’t stink 11.             My hair and skin doesn’t stink 12.           My eyes are clearer and less bloodshot 13.            My automobiles don’t smell 14.           My bank account is healthier 15.           I exercise more 16.           I drink less alcohol 17.            My stress levels are more manageable 18.           I work longer and harder 19.           My blood work and screening is much better 20.          My appetite is much better 21.           My hands and feet don’t get as cold in the winter 22.          My overall wellness and health is much better

Private Prayers for the Priest Before Celebrating the Eucharist Purify our consciences, we beseech thee, Almighty God, that we may worthily hear and receive thy Holy Word, magnify thy Holy Name, and offer unto thee the spotless sacrifice of thy Son, even Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. or Cleanse our consciences, we beseech thee, O God, by thy visitation, that thy Son our Lord Jesus Christ, when he cometh, may find in us a dwelling place made ready for himself; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, ever one God, world without end. Amen. or Be present, be present, O Jesus, our great High Priest, as you were present with your disciples, and be known to us in the breaking of bread; who lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit, now and for ever. Amen. After Celebrating the Eucharist Blessed, praised, worshipped, hallowed and adored be Jesus Christ on his throne of glory in heaven, in the most holy Sacrament of the altar, and in the hearts of his faithful people (and may the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace). Amen. or By the power of the Holy Spirit may I be a reasonable, holy, and living sacrifice to you all the days of my life, O Lord. Amen. or O Lord Jesus Christ, who in a wonderful Sacrament hast left unto us a memorial of thy passion: Grant us, we beseech thee, so to venerate the sacred mysteries of thy Body and Blood, that we may ever perceive within ourselves the fruit of thy redemption; who livest and reignest with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. Prayers for use at the Offertory Offering of the Bread Blessed are you. Lord God of all creation; through your of the Bread goodness we have this bread to offer, which earth has given and human hands have made. It will become for us the Bread of Heaven.       Response:   Blessed be God forever. Preparation of the Cup By the Mystery of this water and wine may we come to of the Cup share in the divinity of Christ, who humbled himself to share in our humanity. Offering of the Cup Blessed are you, Lord God of all creation; through your goodness we have this wine to offer, fruit of the vine and work of human hands. It will become for us the Cup of Salvation.       Response:   Blessed be God forever. Of the Alms: Receive, O Lord, these gifts presented by your people for the work of your Church. At the Lavabo: Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. or Lord, wash away my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. or I will wash my hands among the innocent, Lord, and walk around your altar, that I may tell of your wondrous deeds.

I heard an old, old story How a savior came from glory How He gave his life on Calvary To save someone like me I heard about His groaning, Of his precious blood's atoning Then I repented of my sin And won the victory Oh, victory in Jesus, my savior forever He sought me and He bought me With his redeeming blood He loved me ere I knew him And all my love is due Him He plunged me to victory beneath the Cleansing flood I heard about His healing, Of His cleansing pow'r revealing How He made the lame to walk again And caused the blind to see And then I cried "dear Jesus, Come and heal my broken spirit" And somehow Jesus came and brought To me the victory Oh, victory in Jesus, my savior forever….

My wound had to heal without first being cleansed. I know he was killed, but they never returned his body to me. The mourning period is still going on.” “Every time I see a madman or a hobo in the street I think it may be my husband; or that he might be somewhere in a similar condition.” “Until recently we hoped to find them alive. Today we are going around looking for the bones. This is never going to end…this long nightmare from which I don't know if I can wake up, because I've forgotten what it means to live a normal life.”5

PRAYER Lord, help me to put on the breastplate of righteousness that protects me from the enemy’s attacks. I know it is Your righteousness in me that protects me, but I also know I must not neglect to put on Your righteousness like a bulletproof vest by doing what is right in Your eyes. Reveal to me thoughts, attitudes, and habits of my heart that are not pleasing to You. Show me what I have done, or am about to do, that does not glorify You. I want to see anything in me that violates Your high standards for my life so I can confess it, turn away from it, and be cleansed from all unrighteousness. In Jesus’ name I pray.

Evening Praise Giver of all, another day is ended and I take my place beneath my great redeemer's cross, where healing streams continually descend, where balm is poured into every wound, where I wash anew in the all-cleansing blood, assured that Thou seest in me no spots of sin. Yet a little while and I shall go to Thy home and be no more seen; help me to gird up the loins of my mind, to quicken my step, to speed as if each moment were my last, that my life be joy, my death glory. I thank Thee for the temporal blessings of this world —the refreshing air, the light of the sun, the food that renews strength, the raiment that clothes, the dwelling that shelters, the sleep that gives rest, the starry canopy of night, the summer breeze, the flowers' sweetness, the music of flowing streams, the happy endearments of family, kindred, friends. Things animate, things inanimate, minister to my comfort. My cup runs over. Suffer me not to be insensible to these daily mercies. Thy hand bestows blessings: Thy power averts evil. I bring my tribute of thanks for spiritual graces, the full warmth of faith, the cheering presence of Thy Spirit, the strength of Thy restraining will, Thy spiking of hell's artillery. Blessed be my sovereign Lord!

I ask my readers to observe how deeply thankful we ought to be for the glorious gospel of the grace of God. There is a remedy revealed for mans need, as wide and broad and deep as mans disease. We need not be afraid to look at sin and study its nature, origin, power, extent and vileness, if we only look at the same time at the almighty medicine provided for us in the salvation that is in Jesus Christ. Though sin has abounded, grace has much more abounded. Yes: in the everlasting covenant of redemption, to which Father, Son and Holy Spirit are parties; in the Mediator of that covenant, Jesus Christ the righteous, perfect God and perfect Man in one Person; in the work that He did by dying for our sins and rising again for our justification; in the offices that He fills as our Priest, Substitute, Physician, Shepherd and Advocate; in the precious blood He shed which can cleanse from all sin; in the everlasting righteousness that He brought in; in the perpetual intercession that He carries on as our Representative at Gods right hand; in His power to save to the uttermost the chief of sinners, His willingness to receive and pardon the vilest, His readiness to bear with the weakest; in the grace of the Holy Spirit which He plants in the hearts of all His people, renewing, sanctifying and causing old things to pass away and all things to become newin all this (and oh, what a brief sketch it is!)in all this, I say, there is a full, perfect and complete medicine for the hideous disease of sin. No wonder that old Flavel ends many a chapter of his admirable Fountain of Life with the touching words: "Blessed be God for Jesus Christ.

In Jesus we hear God saying to us, “What you cannot do for yourself, I myself will do. Your sin stands between us, and you cannot remove it, so I will do it for you. My blood will cleanse your sins, and I will remember them no more. Nothing will stand between us. I will rise from the dead so that you can live. My love is too strong for death to conquer. Once alive, I will invite you to die and rise with me. Eternal life is now available. It is in my Son.

Baptism was recruitment into that supernatural holy war that reiterated the waters of the Flood cleansing unholiness and evil from the individual’s life, in preparation for a new messianic world. But in the case of Jesus, it was much more. When Jesus was baptized, the Holy Spirit had come upon him, which was foretold by Isaiah the prophet, “Behold my Servant, whom I uphold, my Chosen One, in whom my soul delights; I have put my Spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations.

Having lived my entire life in the wake of Forsyth's racial cleansing. I wanted to begin reversing its communal act of erasure by learning as much as I could about the lost people and places of black Forsyth. I was determined to document more than just that the expulsions occurred: I wanted to know where, when, how, and to whom. It was then I set myself the task of finding out what really happened - not because the truth is an adequate remedy for the past, and not because it can undo what was done. Instead, I wanted to honor the dead by leaving a fuller account of what they endured and all that they and their descendants lost.

February 26 MORNING “Salvation is of the Lord.” — Jonah 2:9 SALVATION is the work of God. It is He alone who quickens the soul “dead in trespasses and sins,” and it is He also who maintains the soul in its spiritual life. He is both “Alpha and Omega.” “Salvation is of the Lord.” If I am prayerful, God makes me prayerful; if I have graces, they are God’s gifts to me; if I hold on in a consistent life, it is because He upholds me with His hand. I do nothing whatever towards my own preservation, except what God Himself first does in me. Whatever I have, all my goodness is of the Lord alone. Wherein I sin, that is my own; but wherein I act rightly, that is of God, wholly and completely. If I have repulsed a spiritual enemy, the Lord’s strength nerved my arm. Do I live before men a consecrated life? It is not I, but Christ who liveth in me. Am I sanctified? I did not cleanse myself: God’s Holy Spirit sanctifies me. Am I weaned from the world? I am weaned by God’s chastisements sanctified to my good. Do I grow in knowledge? The great Instructor teaches me. All my jewels were fashioned by heavenly art. I find in God all that I want; but I find in myself nothing but sin and misery. “He only is my rock and my salvation.” Do I feed on the Word? That Word would be no food for me unless the Lord made it food for my soul, and helped me to feed upon it. Do I live on the manna which comes down from heaven? What is that manna but Jesus Christ himself incarnate, whose body and whose blood I eat and drink? Am I continually receiving fresh increase of strength? Where do I gather my might? My help cometh from heaven’s hills: without Jesus I can do nothing. As a branch cannot bring forth fruit except it abide in the vine, no more can I, except I abide in Him. What Jonah learned in the great deep, let me learn this morning in my closet: “Salvation is of the Lord.

When We Want God to Breathe New Life into Our Marriage Do not remember the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing, now it shall spring forth; shall you not know it? I will even make a road in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. ISAIAH 43:18-19 WE ALL HAVE TIMES when we know we need new life in our marriage. We feel the strain, the tension, the sameness, or possibly even the subtle decay in it. When there is so much water under the bridge over what seems like a river of hurt, apathy, or preoccupation, we know we cannot survive the slowly and steadily rising flood without the Lord doing a new thing in both of us. The good news is that God says He will do that. He is the God of new beginnings, after all. But it won’t happen if we don’t make a choice to let go of the past. We have been made new if we have received Jesus. “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17). But in a marriage, it is way too easy to hang on to the old disappointments, misunderstandings, disagreements, and abuses. It becomes a wilderness of hurtful memories we cling to because we don’t want to be hurt, disappointed, misunderstood, disregarded, fought with, or abused again. Hanging on to old patterns of thought and negative memories keeps them fresh in your mind. And you don’t let your husband forget them, either. You remain mired in them because you don’t feel the situation has been resolved—and it still hurts. Only God can give you and your husband a new beginning from all that has gone on in the past. Only He can make a road in the wilderness of miscommunication and misread intentions, and make a cleansing and restoring river to flow in the dry areas of your relationship. Everyone needs new life in their marriage at certain times. And only the God of renewal can accomplish that. My Prayer to God LORD, I ask that You would do a fresh work of Your Spirit in our marriage. Make all things new in each of us individually and also together. Dissolve the pain of the past where it is still rising up in us to stifle our communication and ultimately our hope and joy. Wherever we have felt trapped in a wilderness of our own making, carve a way out of it for us and show us the path to follow. If there are rigid and dry areas between us that don’t allow for new growth, give us a fresh flow of Your Spirit to bring new vitality into our relationship. Help us to stop rehearsing old hurtful conversations that have no place in any life committed to the God of new beginnings. Sweep away all the old rubble of selfishness, stubbornness, blindness, and the inability to see beyond the moment or a particular situation. Only You can take away our painful memories so that we don’t keep reliving the same problems, hurts, or injustices. Only You can resurrect love, excitement, and hope where they have died. Help us to forgive fully and allow each other to completely forget. Help us to focus on Your greatness in us, instead of each other’s faults. Holy Spirit, breathe new life into each of us and into our marriage today.

SALVATION BELONGS TO THE LORD! — JONAH 2:9 Salvation is the work of God. It is He alone who quickens the soul “dead in . . . trespasses and sins,”1 and He it is who maintains the soul in its spiritual life. He is both “Alpha and Omega.” “Salvation belongs to the LORD!” If I am prayerful, God makes me prayerful; if I have graces, they are God’s gifts to me; if I hold on in a consistent life, it is because He upholds me with His hand. I do nothing whatever toward my own preservation, except what God Himself first does in me. Whatever I have, all my goodness is of the Lord alone. Whenever I sin, that is my own doing; but when I act correctly, that is wholly and completely of God. If I have resisted a spiritual enemy, the Lord’s strength nerved my arm. Do I live before men a consecrated life? It is not I, but Christ who lives in me. Am I sanctified? I did not cleanse myself: God’s Holy Spirit sanctifies me. Am I separated from the world? I am separated by God’s chastisements sanctified to my good. Do I grow in knowledge? The great Instructor teaches me. All my jewels were fashioned by heavenly art. I find in God all that I want; but I find in myself nothing but sin and misery. “He only is my rock and my salvation.”2 Do I feed on the Word? That Word would be no food for me unless the Lord made it food for my soul and helped me to feed upon it. Do I live on the bread that comes down from heaven? What is that bread but Jesus Christ Himself incarnate, whose body and whose blood I eat and drink? Am I continually receiving fresh supplies of strength? Where do I gather my might? My help comes from heaven’s hills: Without Jesus I can do nothing. As a branch cannot bring forth fruit except it abide in the vine, no more can I, except I abide in Him. What Jonah learned in the ocean, let me learn this morning in my room: “Salvation belongs to the LORD.

never complicate my Daniel Fasts. I keep it simple. Twenty-one days without meat or sweets.  I have fruits, vegetables and water. I was sure this Daniel Fast was going to help me:             Gain control of my emotions. In order to walk by faith, I had to walk in the spirit not the flesh. Just because my life was in chaos, didn’t mean I had to give in to it. There was no way I could walk in the flesh and experience victory.            Rely more on the Holy Spirit for answers and fulfillment than on human logic and comfort food. The Holy Spirit is always with us and He knows the answers to all of the questions that we have.            Detox my body from all of the processed food and sugars that weren’t healthy for me anyway. Our bodies are temples and my temple needed cleansing that would in turn help increase my energy and ward of feelings of depression.

Isn't that a wonderful metaphor for the Christian life? Once we're converted, God does not say: "I have now put My stamp of approval on you, so `Let go and let God.' I'll take care of the rest of your life. You don't have to worry about anything." No, He loves us so much that He cleanses us. In other words, He chastens us. He brings his hand on us heavily from time to time. That is part of the process we must go through to be made pure.

God, I’m so sorry. I’ve been living my life for myself. I made everything about me. I’ve been trying to be the hero of my own story. I’ve been squandering the gifts you gave me. Even when I have used your gifts, I’ve tried to use them for selfish gain. That was my choice and my fault. I accept the responsibility for all that I’ve done. And I repent, God. Please forgive me. You promised in your Word that if I confess my sins, you’ll be faithful and just, you’ll forgive me of my sins, and you’ll cleanse me from my unrighteousness. Remember me, God. Show me all of the pillars in my life, the things that have been keeping me from being your man. Then please give me the strength to push them down. My life isn’t about me anymore. I surrender my heart to you, Lord. I want to be your man, telling your story. Your Word says that you adopted me as your son. Thank you that I am not what I have done but that I am who you say I am. Please make my outward life show other people that I’m your man. Father, teach me how to live my life in a way that pleases you, that brings you the glory that only you deserve. Show me how to be the man you created me to be. I am your man. Show this world what you will do through me. Here I am, Lord. Send me. Use my life as you see fit. Show me what battles to fight. I am your man. Thank you so much for all the ways you’re going to use me to accomplish your purposes in this world. Thank you for making me a warrior. In Jesus’ name, amen.

WILL I BRING MYSELF UP TO THIS LEVEL? “. . . perfecting holiness in the fear of God.” 2 Corinthians 7:1     Therefore, having these promises. . . .” I claim God’s promises for my life and look to their fulfillment, and rightly so, but that shows only the human perspective on them. God’s perspective is that through His promises I will come to recognize His claim of ownership on me. For example, do I realize that my “body is the temple of the Holy Spirit,” or am I condoning some habit in my body which clearly could not withstand the light of God on it? (1 Corinthians 6:19). God formed His Son in me through sanctification, setting me apart from sin and making me holy in His sight (see Galatians 4:19). But I must begin to transform my natural life into spiritual life by obedience to Him. God instructs us even in the smallest details of life. And when He brings you conviction of sin, do not “confer with flesh and blood,” but cleanse yourself from it at once (Galatians 1:16). Keep yourself cleansed in your daily walk.     I must cleanse myself from all filthiness in my flesh and my spirit until both are in harmony with the nature of God. Is the mind of my spirit in perfect agreement with the life of the Son of God in me, or am I mentally rebellious and defiant? Am I allowing the mind of Christ to be formed in me? (see Philippians 2:5). Christ never spoke of His right to Himself, but always maintained an inner vigilance to submit His spirit continually to His Father. I also have the responsibility to keep my spirit in agreement with His Spirit. And when I do, Jesus gradually lifts me up to the level where He lived—a level of perfect submission to His Father’s will—where I pay no attention to anything else. Am I perfecting this kind of holiness in the fear of God? Is God having His way with me, and are people beginning to see God in my life more and more?     Be serious in your commitment to God and gladly leave everything else alone. Literally put God first in your life.

APRIL 23 LET THE FIRE OF GOD BURN UP ANY IDOLS ALLOW MY HOLY fire to burn up and destroy any idol in your life and nation. Through My power I will cause men to throw away their idols and to turn to Me. Renounce all idolatry in your bloodline, and break all curses of idolatry in the name of My Son, Jesus. Stand in My righteousness and join with My servants to abolish all false idols in America and the nations. I will cleanse the land from the pollution of idols and will cause Babylon, the mother of harlots and abominations in the earth, to fall at the name of My Son. Follow My commandment to put no other gods before Me in your life. ISAIAH 31:7; 2 KINGS 21:21; REVELATION 17:5; EXODUS 20:3 Prayer Declaration O Lord, let all men throw away their idols and turn to You. I will keep myself from idols and renounce all idolatry and curses from my life through the name of Jesus. Cleanse this land from the pollution of wickedness and idolatry, and allow me to join with Your servants to abolish the idols in America and the nations.

He . . . began to wash the disciples' feet. John xiii. 5. We forget that Jesus Christ is the same to-day, when He is sitting on the throne, as He was yesterday, when He trod the pathway of our world. And in this forgetfulness how much we miss! What He was, that He is. What He said, that He says. The Gospels are simply specimens of the life that He is ever living; they are leaves torn out of the diary of His unchangeable Being. To-day He is engaged in washing the feet of His disciples, soiled with their wilderness journeyings. Yes, that charming incident is having its fulfilment in thee, my friend, if only thou dost not refuse the lowly loving offices of Him whom we call Master and Lord, but who still girds Himself and comes forth to serve. And we must have this incessant cleansing if we would keep right. It is not enough to look back to a certain hour when we first knelt at the feet of the Son of God for pardon; and heard Him say, "Thy sins, which are many, are all forgiven." We need daily, hourly cleansing—from daily, hourly sin.—F. B. Meyer.