Dear Ones,
As I sit quietly in my chair looking out of my little window in this, my season of solitude, silence, and prayer, I feel the depth of Christ’s love within and a longing to share it with you. As I come to prayer, I bring you with me. I feel once again, the mysterious awakening and awareness of His perfect presence with me and an ever-deepening and renewed sense of gratitude to a God Who would love me enough to give me Himself in the gift of His Son, Jesus. Thus the divine plan—the transformation of our human nature into the likeness of the One who is given.
I pray that you too begin to feel a new depth of Presence and Love as you become more disciplined in coming to prayer. As you come to the Source, may you come to know more intimately Jesus, who is the Source. I pray always that you might hear His voice, the voice that calls you His beloved child. Trust such a great love unreservedly and abandon yourself more and more to it. “Give me everything,” Jesus says, “And I will give you everything.” It is upon this promise we are always to base our hope. And it is in this hope that we are to be persistent and patient in our waiting and in our crying out, “Come, Jesus, come.”
There is always within me a longing to remind you that the mystery of God’s love for us is not just that He wants to take our pains away, but that He wants to first share them with us. Out of His divine presence with us in our suffering comes new life. “Come,” Jesus calls, “Let Me wipe your tears. I am the God of mercy and compassion, of pardon and love, of tenderness and care. I love you. I love you. I love you. I have always loved you. I will never leave you.” This voice calls us to return again and again to the One who created us in love and longs to recreate us in mercy.
Until then, let us be in prayer that we might love one another as Jesus loves us, that we might see the beauty of each other’s uniqueness as Jesus sees ours, and that together we might be found by the Love that holds all of humanity in a compassionate embrace.~Betty
With gratitude to Sally Chester for the beautiful image of Betty