This is the last of the strong meat experiences that in January, I knew Jesus would be asking me to share sometime this year, when my word for the year was reveal; I just didn't know when. (What I am sharing now occurred two years before this one.)
Now that I must this, I have written it in the third person. I have done this so that the meaning of the symbols- of which I myself am one- will hopefully take center stage.
In those places where the Holy Spirit has helped illuminate some of the meaning through Scripture, I have included a link to that Scripture. There are many such links, but without reading them, it will be like looking at an opaque surface, instead of seeing down through. Some of the symbols were not explained to me, but I include them in obedience.
This is much longer than my usual blogs, but the experience itself was unusual. I begin it with something Jesus said to me on the first of this month, which I feel perfectly frames the following journal entry.
May 1, 2015
I have been resting in faith- deep and quiet faith, but an urgent request rose up in me and as the request came up, I could see I was with Jesus, which was a profound relief and I held on tight to Him and I asked Him, “Jesus, why? Why do You give me so much of Yourself?”
As a sign of My grace, He replied.
December 14, 2013
Wanting to be with Jesus, she reached out with her longing and her faith for Him, but it was as though she were reaching through a sandstorm. In the blowing static, she could see nothing and only faintly sense His presence, but she heard Jesus say to her encouragingly, I’m here.
Hearing this lit up her spirit with recognition- how many times had she heard Jesus say those exact words when in the past she had reached for Him? It amazed her to hear them again after a long time of not turning toward Him.
“He says that!” she thought to herself in amazement. “Jesus does say that and I hear His voice!”
She persisted by faith, knowing that Jesus is always with her and knowing from past experience that sight did not always come immediately. She began to see Him, first His form and then His face and the grass on which they stood and she clung to Jesus for a long time, letting her spirit rest in His presence. When she was quiet and peaceful and centered in Jesus, she drew away from Him in order to look up at His face.
“How are You?” she asked.
I’m tired, He said.
When He said that, she saw His face with great clarity and Jesus did look exhausted, as though having finished something or just been through something that was emotionally draining. It confused her to think that Jesus might be tired, but in faith, she accepted this mystery and simply responded to Jesus as He was showing Himself to her.
“My goodness, You look tired!” she stated in a no-nonsense tone of voice, having decided to accept the mystery in that way. His eyes, usually sparking with joy and good humor, held instead sadness. There were dark circles under His eyes and all the lines in His face were deeper and the scaring more prominent.
Filled with compassion, she put her arms around His shoulders and hugged Him. Jesus accepted this compassion with a simple ease, as one would from a family member.
He was wearing just a simple white tunic, loose, to His calves, plain and comfortable. The girl referred to this tunic in a gesture without words, as she had never seen Jesus dressed quite like that before, and also without words, Jesus asked if she minded Him appearing that way.
“I don’t mind at all,” she said honestly, articulating this.
“What have You been doing?” she asked Him, in wonder, but He couldn’t explain- it was too far over her head.
“Come here,” she said, firmly. “You will rest.”
I want to rest, He replied, with simple acceptance.
The girl took His hand and led Him into the inner room. “Sit down,” she said, kneeling before Him. “I’m going to take Your sandals off. Sit down,” she had repeat, with affectionate firmness, because Jesus kept trying to stand up. The girl knew that Jesus has a tendency to want to be the one serving those that He loves, so sometimes it could be difficult to do things for Him out of love, so there could sometimes be a loving tug of war between who does what for whom.
As soon as His sandals were off, Jesus drew His feet up, turned over onto His side and fell asleep. For a moment, the girl leaned over Him and watched Him with awe. She was accustomed to seeing Jesus resting, because when she was with Him, that was almost all that He did, that or walking with her through the woods or the fields in a slow and pleasant way.
Some of those times when He had rested, His peacefulness had been so deep as to be like sleep, and this was similar, but no matter how many times this had happened, it filled her spirit with awe and tenderness. In His peacefulness, with His eyes closed and His restful breathing, He was demonstrating to her a level of trust and vulnerability that made her want to tip toe around the room, holding her breath, lest she disturb Him.
A bird fluttered down through the open room, surprising the girl not because it was there, but because such things happened often.
“Always birds!” she thought to herself, smiling, but she held the small song sparrow in her hand and told it “Shhh! He’s sleeping!” In a moment, it was gone. The girl’s sight was such that movement was hard to see and so often it seemed as though things came and went abruptly.
She stood on the edge of the front porch and looked out on the hazy green fields, drenched in peace. There was some occasions when she was with Jesus and could see nothing but His face as she rested, and there were other times when she could not see even that, or only for a moment, and rested simply in His loving presence without any sight at all.
But now she could see out to the edges of the fields where the woods rose up, slightly ragged at the edges, green and shaded. She tiptoed around the room on her bare feet, looking here or there, always in the back of her mind thinking in wonder of Jesus appearing to sleep, and being drawn to go and look at Him, just to make sure.
On one occasion, Jesus was no longer asleep, but opened His eyes and sat up and she went to Him, laughing and then the girl was filled with inspiration. If Jesus had slept, perhaps He might also be hungry or thirsty.
“Do You want anything to eat?” she asked eagerly, but Jesus was not hungry.
“Are You thirsty?” she asked, peering at Him intently, interested. “Do You want something to drink?”
Yes, that would be nice, Jesus replied, smiling. His was just that sort of reply that a parent gives a child when the child has prepared, with much labor and love, a dubious culinary offering, and offering it with an enthusiasm tempered with shyness, and the parent is prepared not only to eat it, but to exclaim over it and pronounce it absolutely wonderful.
Then the girl remembered that there was no kitchen. There had once been something like a kitchen, but it had never been used and the girl hadn’t understood the point of it, and thought eventually that she must be seeing it wrong and that it wasn’t supposed to be there.
So, once in a time when Jesus was helping her to rearrange the rooms in reflection of how much she had grown in her relationship with Him, she had decided to let the kitchen go entirely. That space of the front room was nothing but empty stone now.
Now the girl wondered how many wonderful memories and loving service to Jesus she had missed out on by never using, by faith, the gift that had been given her. She had been shortsighted in her faith- that faith that operates through love, after all.
She could not go back in time, but she could go forward- there was, after all, a fountain in the rooms. Marching into the room, she caught the water in a glass and brought it to Jesus, and He drank it.
Falling deeper into the knowledge that she was with Jesus, the girl stood in the middle of the room and held out her hands to Him, and He came. The knowledge of the presence of Jesus took from the girl those outward assumptions that sometimes are projected as oneself, but are not, because in the presence of Jesus, only the truth remains- especially the truth about oneself. The girl knew herself to be small, finite within herself and without defense, but alive in and to Jesus Christ, safe with Him. Everything about her and everything in her perception became deeper, sweeter and more alive.
Because of this, she was able to look up and into the clear loving and luminous depths of Jesus' eyes, because already everything about her was known and everything past was forgiven, so she was not afraid to let her soul and spirit be seen through her eyes to Him, and she was speaking to Jesus and Jesus was speaking to her, easily, freely, but she forget everything they said at that time and so cannot record it.
Then she noticed His face again, as it was changed from the haggard appearance of before, the weariness gone, replaced by peace and refreshment. When she remarked on this, Jesus explained that, by His Holy Spirit upwelling within her as His gift to her, it was possible for her to refresh Him by pouring that gift back to Him with love and trust, which she had been doing as she worshiped and adored Him.
This was possible because He was now her Life and her spirit and His were one, as she had died with Him, been resurrected with Him into His new life and was seated with Him, all by His overflowing, ineffable grace and surpassing love.
Understanding this, the girl was caught up in worship and adoration of Jesus and the more she worshiped Him, the more fully she was able to recognize and perceive His presence, and the more she knew He was with her, the more she worshiped Him until the ecstatic joy in His presence was so great it seemed almost to be beyond belief, beyond bearing, beyond her strength and she would have turned herself away from this knowledge, as it was at that point too great for her to perceive it further.
But in that moment and before she could, Jesus spoke to her strongly, intently, like a cry from His heart- Don’t turn away from Me!
In that one phrase, the girl understood many things- that she must not turn from Him in disbelief despite the overwhelming and surpassing greatness of knowing herself to be in the presence of Jesus Christ her Lord and Savior, as her open hearted belief allowed her to move within the presence of Jesus, and to relate to Him in love and trust, even when the weight and joy of that knowledge went so far beyond her expectations that they seemed to be swept up in the air like a house of cards in a hurricane.
She pondered this, knowing that this was very important for her to remember and to understand, and as she did, she began to remember again that Jesus is a King- the King of kings. This is a title of His that she has rarely ever seen illustrated in a spiritual way, as usually Jesus appears to her in simplicity and gentleness, leading her kindly with love and accepting for a throne only the threadbare couch placed upon the front room where often He sits at ease, talking with her or simply resting.
As she was considering this, Jesus asked her if she wanted to see Him as King. He has sometimes offered her such invitations in the past, which caused in the girl a swift response of conflicting emotions, all of which she needed to sort through, so she could know the answer that lay quietly at the bottom of her heart- the real answer. The answer was that she did wish to see this.
Realizing this, the girl and Jesus were then standing outside, and the whole weather and season had appeared had changed. it was no longer sunny and summer, it was night and snow lay on the grass and the hills, and more snow was falling. Everything was white, silver, blue and ebony.
Jesus pointed and the girls saw where He indicated, over the trees that run up the far side of the upper field and into the blue hills that normally lie in a warm haze of summer light, there were now lights upon the dark crests- it was a city.
“You know, I always thought there was a city there,” she said to Jesus, in awe.
Jesus drew the girl there swiftly and smoothly along roads and ways the girl could not see well or continuously. Once there, the city itself was full of narrow passage ways that she couldn’t see well or understand, but she held tight to Jesus’ hand and let Him open the way forward though what seemed to her to be a jumble of buildings, angles, arches and passages ways moving and overlapping, due to the girl's poor spiritual sight.
It’s difficult for her to see and move at the same time, as her spiritual eyes don’t work that quickly. She has to be still in order to see clearly; she must have time to receive the image, to consider it and to offer it to the Holy Spirit for validation and illumination in her understanding. When, for some reason or another, she does not have this time, she clings closely to Jesus, remaining tightly in His presence and leaning only on Him and not on what she sees, knowing that He will guide her safely and she is safe always with Him.
Soon they came to a place where there was a bench and they sat down on the bench, which was a relief to the girl, to remain in one place. Above her there was a two story house- the girl saw this from a distance, as though seeing herself and Jesus on the bench and above them, the house lit up in the dark with welcoming windows, and then they were in the second story room.
On one side were windows and through them, the girl could see the rest of the city, which rose up a hill to large lit up building at the top. It was night time, but full of city lights and the view was framed by rich drapes pulled back.
Despite the largeness of the symbolism, the girl had to realize where she was. "Goodness!" she exclaimed to Jesus, "it's an upper room!" Sometimes it is difficult for the girl to grasp what she is seeing because the meaning is too much, and she wishes almost to push it away, to prevent herself from coming to the conclusion, because how could these things be happening to her and why to her?
This is partly why Jesus insisted that she not turn away from Him, but remain in faith and trust in His presence and to receive what He is teaching her. Even now, the girl must admit she still struggles with this and is grateful always for the unending patience and persistence of her Lord and Teacher.
Jesus was standing by the windows, watching. Without Him saying so, the girl knew that He had prepared this place for her as a gift of love, and that He had set her in it suddenly because He knew she had trouble with movement and transitions. The tenderness of His gift moved her heart deeply. The girl knew that when Jesus gives gifts, they come straight out of His heart.
She set herself to explore with Him. It was quite different from the inner rooms with their spare stone walls, open spaces and surfaces and wide views of the outside in every direction which flooded the rooms with the light from outdoors. This upper room was enclosed, full of golden fabrics, warmly lit by interior light. While exploring the room, the girl found a door to a balcony. From the balcony, she could look back over the hills toward the direction of the inner rooms.
“Look, it’s our home,” she remarked to Jesus. It was lovely in the night and knowing where she was and where other things were in relation to it added to the beauty and mystery.
Inside the room, Jesus sat down cross legged in the center of the room- the easy, practiced movement of His bringing vividly to mind how and when He had spent His earthly life, especially in the simple white robe He was wearing.
He held His hands out to the girl, and she came partly across the room to Jesus, pausing only to look at Him, to focus her sight on His beloved and familiar face, and her spirit rose up in joyful praise and adoration of Jesus.
She went to Him and knelt down close Him. In her worship of Jesus, which was the outpouring of her spirit in love, the girl was aware that to Jesus, and because of His work, her spirit was beautiful, and her loving worship was most precious to Him- not because Jesus has an ego that needs validation, but because Jesus Himself is full of self giving love. So in response to His loving heart, she poured out love to Him, which is the living worship, as though her heart were a cup and she could tip it out to Him.
Part of the great beauty of Jesus is His self giving nature, and as we grow in this nature ourselves through His Holy Spirit living in us, we begin to take on His image and a similar beauty. This laying down of ourselves in love and worship to God in trust, giving up who we are apart from Him- had died and is passing away, as our old selves were crucified with Christ- and finding our true selves in Him as He gives us His life, growing us up in Him, is a small reflection of the inner life of God in the Trinity.
The girl noticed that she was dressed in gold, but she tried not to think about this too much. Though it was too much for her to consider, she accepted the gift, because accepting is part of humility. False humility isn't small enough to receive gifts because it is just a false front, but true humility will do so each time, for the joy of the Giver. The girl knows this well because she still struggles with it.
Jesus let the girl know that He wanted her ago to go to the Temple, and as she knew this, she knew also that in going there, He was going to show her a part of what it meant for Him to be King- that He was giving her the answer right then.
“What, now?” the girl asked, wanting to stall for time. She had been in the Temple before and the experience had been so far beyond her that it had been an ordeal of her faith, because in that light and in the presence of the Father, her eyes could hardly take in anything at all, and all the old beliefs regarding her Father conflicted with His heart of love that Jesus was revealing to her, and this inner conflict was exhausting.
In everything that she did there, both her faith in Jesus and her faith in Abba were stretched out step by step as though she were walking on nothing and going forth blind as the light shone on all the areas of her hidden fear and shame, each step causing her to choose between the shame and fear, or her faith and love in Jesus. It had been an emotionally exhausting ordeal and she would not have chosen to go there again, but if Jesus was leading her there again, she would go.
Jesus was again standing by the window, but He was dressed in something other than the white robe from before. this outfit appeared bulky and angular to the girl, who was puzzled by it, and then as it came into focus she realized it looked just like the illustrations she had seen in the Old Testament of her childhood Bible.
“My goodness, You look like a priest," she exclaimed, in awe and surprise.
It was only then that she remembered that Jesus is a priest- the High Priest. This feeling of awe came over her. It was sobering to see Jesus dressed in such symbolic and heavy clothing, but even then, Jesus was still Himself, with His dancing, loving brown eyes as He smiled at her with love.
She followed Him down the stairs and outside, but the girl was already having a really hard time seeing and then they were at the door and she looked around and said, “I remember this place,” because she did- except it was a side door and not the front double doors.
Steady, Jenny, steady, Jesus whispered, looking down at her as they stood at the threshold of this door.
“I’ll try, I’ll try,” she said, breathlessly, determined that she would by faith and in trust, try and receive all that He was giving her to see and to learn all He wished to teach her.
He took the hand of the girl and they went in and immediately it was so overwhelming to her that she cast her eyes down. The brilliant golden light was like a haze that filled her vision and the room, but she could hear the whispering of countless people and feel the heat of them, as though she had walked into a packed auditorium.
Though she kept her eyes on the golden, glowing floor, it was also as though she could see beyond herself from somewhere behind or over herself, so that through the golden haze she saw what was a countless multitude of people that stretched out on all sides to the very limit of her vision.
Where Jesus stood, the crowd parted and this parting made a pathway over the gorgeous golden flooring, which the girl was trying with all her concentration to keep her eyes on and was clinging to Jesus as though her life depending upon it, as she felt in a very real since it did. The girl was worried that maybe her timidity and reluctance was embarrassing Jesus in front of these people, but He did not look embarrassed, He looked confident and full of love- love of all the people there.
Moved by something she didn’t know, the girl looked up for one moment and in the line of people or persons, saw that shape of what she though must be some type of angel that she had seen before.
“Jesus,” she whispered to Him and He stopped and looked down at her and she looked over at that person and she said, “Do I know him?” She meant, is that the personage I met before?
Yes, Jesus said, smiling, looking where she was looking.
The girl looked down again, but she had seen that although there was no room possible that could contain all these individuals, the walls of the Temple- in some way translucent and expanding- had seemed to contain them, so that the girl had the impression of being both in an enclosed space in a close packed group, and yet also in a space as far as the horizon filled with people.
She had seen the landscape on which they stood, and it was as though the land were lit by a dimly golden light- the light was intensely gold where she was, but also the horizon was lit by light that was not yet fully arrived- as though the sun were just under the horizon and the light was spreading upward.
The girl knew they were going toward where Papa stood, but she tried not to think about that, because it was too much. She could not see Him, only a golden cloud in the center of the building filling a space designated by pillars. They stepped into the golden cloud that obscured the center of the throne room and it was dark in there- a very holy darkness.
“Where are we?” she whispered to Jesus.
The holy of holies, He replied, and she was terrified, but Jesus reminded her that she entered the holy of holies often, easily and without dread; whenever she was caught up in ecstatic worship of Him, she was entering the holy of holies. Jesus reminded her that He had torn the curtain by His death on the cross, and she was now free to enter.
Jesus gently pointed out that all the agony He had been through and His death on the cross had not been in vain, but He had brought mankind close to God, to be in close relationship with God.
The girl saw in the holy dark that there were stairs of carved ivory and they went up beyond her sight, and she knew Jesus wanted her to go up them and at first the girl could only say that she could not. But Jesus kept encouraging her to try, never losing His patience, but encouraging her gently in love, so she went up there with Him one step at a time, together. She would take one step and wait there with Him, and take another step, and wait there.
At the top of the stairs was the roof of the Temple building. The first impression the girl received was that she stood directly under the night sky in a way that was impossible. The night sky above her and around her was crowded with the colossal, dense bulk of spherical planets- some much larger than earth, and not one, but many and they all filled the space directly above and outward toward the horizon, and yet were not crashing into each other- were not touching each other.
In fact, between them or through them, the girl could still see stars and constellations as bright white lights in the night sky. Below the Temple were the lights of the city and the dark snowy landscape which spread out on all sides to the horizon which was lit with coming light, light that was rising up into the sky, but that had not yet spread out horizontally over the land. Part of the landscape was land and part of it was the sea and dividing the sea and the land was a strip of pale beach that went in a curve from the Temple to the point of greatest light at the horizon.
The girl did not see all of it at one time, but saw each thing and then the next thing as she looked up and then down and then out, until she knew herself to be standing amid massive impossibilities, and hauntingly beautiful. In the midst of this, the most pressing and intense sight was not around them, but next to them- on the roof beside was a cloud and she knew the cloud hid Papa and that she stood before Him.
Jesus kept reminding her and she kept trying to remember and Papa Himself kept saying, that He was truly her Father- she was His child. This was true, and so His love for her was the genuine, tender, deep and safe love of a father for his daughter and the girl managed barely to hang on to the edge of that through her fears- fears that the Father was terrible in His holiness, implacable in His demands, disdainful of anything less than perfection and deeply, wrathfully offended at her inability to trust Him.
These fears were almost deafening, but Jesus spoke through them, so in faith, she put out her hand for Abba to shake, very formally, which was the one absurd gesture her faith could offer in that moment.
Instead of being offended, Jesus and the Father were overflowing with great love and tender amusement and perfect understanding- after all, the Father knew exactly who the girl was as a unique individual- what time period and nationality she came from, and so were familiar with those gestures of welcome or greeting that the girl would naturally revert to in times of stress. With love and gentleness, Papa took her hand and held it firmly and He spoke to her.
Papa said, you asked Me something.
It wasn't until she heard Him say this that she remembered. All of a sudden, the girl remembered once asking the Father something. Normally, she never directly addressed her prayers to Him, for fear of dreadfully offending Him in some way, but in that particular case, her need was desperate and great, as she was being compressed under a load of condemnation so heavy she couldn't lift her head, and in those straits, she had put her request straight to the Father.
Strongly and firmly, as if closing a door on all else that could be spoken, Abba said, I created you.
It took the girl a moment to realize what this meant, but Abba repeated it several times until she got it- what He meant was, she was good, very good- like everything that He created, as He had declared over everything in the beginning. That was His intent from the beginning and now her original identity and His original intent in her was true- through Christ Jesus His Son, through Him she had been reborn, a new creation- good, very good, like her Father Himself, made in His image.
The girl went down to her knees and this was such a relief to her! It felt right and good to be kneeling before Abba, and Jesus knelt down with her, and the relief of being near Jesus and being on her knees steadied her.
At first, the fact that Jesus was kneeling beside her did not surprise the girl, because lots of times when she is with Jesus and she bends down or sits down to look at something, He also sits down with her. However, in a moment, she and Jesus were facing one another, still kneeling and Jesus held her two hands firmly in His and she felt Abba's hand on her head and knew also that His other hand was resting on Jesus.
This sight and this knowledge was immediately rejected by the girl, as if in essence, she turned her face away from seeing something that she felt could not possibly be for her to know. But Jesus, swiftly and wordlessly, reminded her of a time years previously, when the girl had been resting in the presence of Jesus- not with sight, as that had not yet opened up, but knowing in her spirit that she was in the presence of Jesus- knowing this all day long and all night long. At that time, as she had been with Him while going about her day, she had felt the Father turn herself to Jesus, and Jesus to herself, as though to face one another At that time, that alone seemed too great to be understood and so she had simply written it down.
Now, in obedience to Jesus' leading she tried to grasp the growing pattern, this little illustration of something too large to hold, too large to be about only herself.
Jesus kept encouraging her to made the connection, to come to the conclusion and to accept the meaning of what she was seeing and so in sheer obedience and because Jesus was persistent, she did- it was like a marriage ceremony. It was as though Papa was giving a marriage blessing.
Think about this, Jesus insisted. Consider this, what this is, what is happening.
He was insistent. He told the girl that this union was one that Papa planned before the world was created and He had blessed and brought it about, because this union with Christ Jesus is at the heart of who we are in Christ. Because that is the joy that was set before Jesus, and He, Papa and the Holy Spirit are one and the most beautiful and powerful symbol for that, to the girl's understanding, was the union of marriage, with the mystery and beauty and vulnerability, the belonging that no one else sees or enters or knows but the one within.
And Jesus reminded her how it was the Spirit and the bride that said, “Come!”
And who were they telling to come, Jesus asked, patiently, if that invitation was extended only at the conclusion?
*
The next morning, the verse was on her calendar was:
“He gave them bread from heaven. They ate the food of angels! God gave them all they could hold.”
-Psalm 78:24-5
*
Now that I must this, I have written it in the third person. I have done this so that the meaning of the symbols- of which I myself am one- will hopefully take center stage.
In those places where the Holy Spirit has helped illuminate some of the meaning through Scripture, I have included a link to that Scripture. There are many such links, but without reading them, it will be like looking at an opaque surface, instead of seeing down through. Some of the symbols were not explained to me, but I include them in obedience.
This is much longer than my usual blogs, but the experience itself was unusual. I begin it with something Jesus said to me on the first of this month, which I feel perfectly frames the following journal entry.
May 1, 2015
I have been resting in faith- deep and quiet faith, but an urgent request rose up in me and as the request came up, I could see I was with Jesus, which was a profound relief and I held on tight to Him and I asked Him, “Jesus, why? Why do You give me so much of Yourself?”
As a sign of My grace, He replied.
December 14, 2013
Wanting to be with Jesus, she reached out with her longing and her faith for Him, but it was as though she were reaching through a sandstorm. In the blowing static, she could see nothing and only faintly sense His presence, but she heard Jesus say to her encouragingly, I’m here.
Hearing this lit up her spirit with recognition- how many times had she heard Jesus say those exact words when in the past she had reached for Him? It amazed her to hear them again after a long time of not turning toward Him.
“He says that!” she thought to herself in amazement. “Jesus does say that and I hear His voice!”
She persisted by faith, knowing that Jesus is always with her and knowing from past experience that sight did not always come immediately. She began to see Him, first His form and then His face and the grass on which they stood and she clung to Jesus for a long time, letting her spirit rest in His presence. When she was quiet and peaceful and centered in Jesus, she drew away from Him in order to look up at His face.
“How are You?” she asked.
I’m tired, He said.
When He said that, she saw His face with great clarity and Jesus did look exhausted, as though having finished something or just been through something that was emotionally draining. It confused her to think that Jesus might be tired, but in faith, she accepted this mystery and simply responded to Jesus as He was showing Himself to her.
“My goodness, You look tired!” she stated in a no-nonsense tone of voice, having decided to accept the mystery in that way. His eyes, usually sparking with joy and good humor, held instead sadness. There were dark circles under His eyes and all the lines in His face were deeper and the scaring more prominent.
Filled with compassion, she put her arms around His shoulders and hugged Him. Jesus accepted this compassion with a simple ease, as one would from a family member.
He was wearing just a simple white tunic, loose, to His calves, plain and comfortable. The girl referred to this tunic in a gesture without words, as she had never seen Jesus dressed quite like that before, and also without words, Jesus asked if she minded Him appearing that way.
“I don’t mind at all,” she said honestly, articulating this.
“What have You been doing?” she asked Him, in wonder, but He couldn’t explain- it was too far over her head.
“Come here,” she said, firmly. “You will rest.”
I want to rest, He replied, with simple acceptance.
The girl took His hand and led Him into the inner room. “Sit down,” she said, kneeling before Him. “I’m going to take Your sandals off. Sit down,” she had repeat, with affectionate firmness, because Jesus kept trying to stand up. The girl knew that Jesus has a tendency to want to be the one serving those that He loves, so sometimes it could be difficult to do things for Him out of love, so there could sometimes be a loving tug of war between who does what for whom.
As soon as His sandals were off, Jesus drew His feet up, turned over onto His side and fell asleep. For a moment, the girl leaned over Him and watched Him with awe. She was accustomed to seeing Jesus resting, because when she was with Him, that was almost all that He did, that or walking with her through the woods or the fields in a slow and pleasant way.
Some of those times when He had rested, His peacefulness had been so deep as to be like sleep, and this was similar, but no matter how many times this had happened, it filled her spirit with awe and tenderness. In His peacefulness, with His eyes closed and His restful breathing, He was demonstrating to her a level of trust and vulnerability that made her want to tip toe around the room, holding her breath, lest she disturb Him.
A bird fluttered down through the open room, surprising the girl not because it was there, but because such things happened often.
“Always birds!” she thought to herself, smiling, but she held the small song sparrow in her hand and told it “Shhh! He’s sleeping!” In a moment, it was gone. The girl’s sight was such that movement was hard to see and so often it seemed as though things came and went abruptly.
She stood on the edge of the front porch and looked out on the hazy green fields, drenched in peace. There was some occasions when she was with Jesus and could see nothing but His face as she rested, and there were other times when she could not see even that, or only for a moment, and rested simply in His loving presence without any sight at all.
But now she could see out to the edges of the fields where the woods rose up, slightly ragged at the edges, green and shaded. She tiptoed around the room on her bare feet, looking here or there, always in the back of her mind thinking in wonder of Jesus appearing to sleep, and being drawn to go and look at Him, just to make sure.
On one occasion, Jesus was no longer asleep, but opened His eyes and sat up and she went to Him, laughing and then the girl was filled with inspiration. If Jesus had slept, perhaps He might also be hungry or thirsty.
“Do You want anything to eat?” she asked eagerly, but Jesus was not hungry.
“Are You thirsty?” she asked, peering at Him intently, interested. “Do You want something to drink?”
Yes, that would be nice, Jesus replied, smiling. His was just that sort of reply that a parent gives a child when the child has prepared, with much labor and love, a dubious culinary offering, and offering it with an enthusiasm tempered with shyness, and the parent is prepared not only to eat it, but to exclaim over it and pronounce it absolutely wonderful.
Then the girl remembered that there was no kitchen. There had once been something like a kitchen, but it had never been used and the girl hadn’t understood the point of it, and thought eventually that she must be seeing it wrong and that it wasn’t supposed to be there.
So, once in a time when Jesus was helping her to rearrange the rooms in reflection of how much she had grown in her relationship with Him, she had decided to let the kitchen go entirely. That space of the front room was nothing but empty stone now.
Now the girl wondered how many wonderful memories and loving service to Jesus she had missed out on by never using, by faith, the gift that had been given her. She had been shortsighted in her faith- that faith that operates through love, after all.
She could not go back in time, but she could go forward- there was, after all, a fountain in the rooms. Marching into the room, she caught the water in a glass and brought it to Jesus, and He drank it.
Falling deeper into the knowledge that she was with Jesus, the girl stood in the middle of the room and held out her hands to Him, and He came. The knowledge of the presence of Jesus took from the girl those outward assumptions that sometimes are projected as oneself, but are not, because in the presence of Jesus, only the truth remains- especially the truth about oneself. The girl knew herself to be small, finite within herself and without defense, but alive in and to Jesus Christ, safe with Him. Everything about her and everything in her perception became deeper, sweeter and more alive.
Because of this, she was able to look up and into the clear loving and luminous depths of Jesus' eyes, because already everything about her was known and everything past was forgiven, so she was not afraid to let her soul and spirit be seen through her eyes to Him, and she was speaking to Jesus and Jesus was speaking to her, easily, freely, but she forget everything they said at that time and so cannot record it.
Then she noticed His face again, as it was changed from the haggard appearance of before, the weariness gone, replaced by peace and refreshment. When she remarked on this, Jesus explained that, by His Holy Spirit upwelling within her as His gift to her, it was possible for her to refresh Him by pouring that gift back to Him with love and trust, which she had been doing as she worshiped and adored Him.
This was possible because He was now her Life and her spirit and His were one, as she had died with Him, been resurrected with Him into His new life and was seated with Him, all by His overflowing, ineffable grace and surpassing love.
Understanding this, the girl was caught up in worship and adoration of Jesus and the more she worshiped Him, the more fully she was able to recognize and perceive His presence, and the more she knew He was with her, the more she worshiped Him until the ecstatic joy in His presence was so great it seemed almost to be beyond belief, beyond bearing, beyond her strength and she would have turned herself away from this knowledge, as it was at that point too great for her to perceive it further.
But in that moment and before she could, Jesus spoke to her strongly, intently, like a cry from His heart- Don’t turn away from Me!
In that one phrase, the girl understood many things- that she must not turn from Him in disbelief despite the overwhelming and surpassing greatness of knowing herself to be in the presence of Jesus Christ her Lord and Savior, as her open hearted belief allowed her to move within the presence of Jesus, and to relate to Him in love and trust, even when the weight and joy of that knowledge went so far beyond her expectations that they seemed to be swept up in the air like a house of cards in a hurricane.
She pondered this, knowing that this was very important for her to remember and to understand, and as she did, she began to remember again that Jesus is a King- the King of kings. This is a title of His that she has rarely ever seen illustrated in a spiritual way, as usually Jesus appears to her in simplicity and gentleness, leading her kindly with love and accepting for a throne only the threadbare couch placed upon the front room where often He sits at ease, talking with her or simply resting.
As she was considering this, Jesus asked her if she wanted to see Him as King. He has sometimes offered her such invitations in the past, which caused in the girl a swift response of conflicting emotions, all of which she needed to sort through, so she could know the answer that lay quietly at the bottom of her heart- the real answer. The answer was that she did wish to see this.
Realizing this, the girl and Jesus were then standing outside, and the whole weather and season had appeared had changed. it was no longer sunny and summer, it was night and snow lay on the grass and the hills, and more snow was falling. Everything was white, silver, blue and ebony.
Jesus pointed and the girls saw where He indicated, over the trees that run up the far side of the upper field and into the blue hills that normally lie in a warm haze of summer light, there were now lights upon the dark crests- it was a city.
“You know, I always thought there was a city there,” she said to Jesus, in awe.
Jesus drew the girl there swiftly and smoothly along roads and ways the girl could not see well or continuously. Once there, the city itself was full of narrow passage ways that she couldn’t see well or understand, but she held tight to Jesus’ hand and let Him open the way forward though what seemed to her to be a jumble of buildings, angles, arches and passages ways moving and overlapping, due to the girl's poor spiritual sight.
It’s difficult for her to see and move at the same time, as her spiritual eyes don’t work that quickly. She has to be still in order to see clearly; she must have time to receive the image, to consider it and to offer it to the Holy Spirit for validation and illumination in her understanding. When, for some reason or another, she does not have this time, she clings closely to Jesus, remaining tightly in His presence and leaning only on Him and not on what she sees, knowing that He will guide her safely and she is safe always with Him.
Soon they came to a place where there was a bench and they sat down on the bench, which was a relief to the girl, to remain in one place. Above her there was a two story house- the girl saw this from a distance, as though seeing herself and Jesus on the bench and above them, the house lit up in the dark with welcoming windows, and then they were in the second story room.
On one side were windows and through them, the girl could see the rest of the city, which rose up a hill to large lit up building at the top. It was night time, but full of city lights and the view was framed by rich drapes pulled back.
Despite the largeness of the symbolism, the girl had to realize where she was. "Goodness!" she exclaimed to Jesus, "it's an upper room!" Sometimes it is difficult for the girl to grasp what she is seeing because the meaning is too much, and she wishes almost to push it away, to prevent herself from coming to the conclusion, because how could these things be happening to her and why to her?
This is partly why Jesus insisted that she not turn away from Him, but remain in faith and trust in His presence and to receive what He is teaching her. Even now, the girl must admit she still struggles with this and is grateful always for the unending patience and persistence of her Lord and Teacher.
Jesus was standing by the windows, watching. Without Him saying so, the girl knew that He had prepared this place for her as a gift of love, and that He had set her in it suddenly because He knew she had trouble with movement and transitions. The tenderness of His gift moved her heart deeply. The girl knew that when Jesus gives gifts, they come straight out of His heart.
She set herself to explore with Him. It was quite different from the inner rooms with their spare stone walls, open spaces and surfaces and wide views of the outside in every direction which flooded the rooms with the light from outdoors. This upper room was enclosed, full of golden fabrics, warmly lit by interior light. While exploring the room, the girl found a door to a balcony. From the balcony, she could look back over the hills toward the direction of the inner rooms.
“Look, it’s our home,” she remarked to Jesus. It was lovely in the night and knowing where she was and where other things were in relation to it added to the beauty and mystery.
Inside the room, Jesus sat down cross legged in the center of the room- the easy, practiced movement of His bringing vividly to mind how and when He had spent His earthly life, especially in the simple white robe He was wearing.
He held His hands out to the girl, and she came partly across the room to Jesus, pausing only to look at Him, to focus her sight on His beloved and familiar face, and her spirit rose up in joyful praise and adoration of Jesus.
She went to Him and knelt down close Him. In her worship of Jesus, which was the outpouring of her spirit in love, the girl was aware that to Jesus, and because of His work, her spirit was beautiful, and her loving worship was most precious to Him- not because Jesus has an ego that needs validation, but because Jesus Himself is full of self giving love. So in response to His loving heart, she poured out love to Him, which is the living worship, as though her heart were a cup and she could tip it out to Him.
Part of the great beauty of Jesus is His self giving nature, and as we grow in this nature ourselves through His Holy Spirit living in us, we begin to take on His image and a similar beauty. This laying down of ourselves in love and worship to God in trust, giving up who we are apart from Him- had died and is passing away, as our old selves were crucified with Christ- and finding our true selves in Him as He gives us His life, growing us up in Him, is a small reflection of the inner life of God in the Trinity.
The girl noticed that she was dressed in gold, but she tried not to think about this too much. Though it was too much for her to consider, she accepted the gift, because accepting is part of humility. False humility isn't small enough to receive gifts because it is just a false front, but true humility will do so each time, for the joy of the Giver. The girl knows this well because she still struggles with it.
Jesus let the girl know that He wanted her ago to go to the Temple, and as she knew this, she knew also that in going there, He was going to show her a part of what it meant for Him to be King- that He was giving her the answer right then.
“What, now?” the girl asked, wanting to stall for time. She had been in the Temple before and the experience had been so far beyond her that it had been an ordeal of her faith, because in that light and in the presence of the Father, her eyes could hardly take in anything at all, and all the old beliefs regarding her Father conflicted with His heart of love that Jesus was revealing to her, and this inner conflict was exhausting.
In everything that she did there, both her faith in Jesus and her faith in Abba were stretched out step by step as though she were walking on nothing and going forth blind as the light shone on all the areas of her hidden fear and shame, each step causing her to choose between the shame and fear, or her faith and love in Jesus. It had been an emotionally exhausting ordeal and she would not have chosen to go there again, but if Jesus was leading her there again, she would go.
Jesus was again standing by the window, but He was dressed in something other than the white robe from before. this outfit appeared bulky and angular to the girl, who was puzzled by it, and then as it came into focus she realized it looked just like the illustrations she had seen in the Old Testament of her childhood Bible.
“My goodness, You look like a priest," she exclaimed, in awe and surprise.
It was only then that she remembered that Jesus is a priest- the High Priest. This feeling of awe came over her. It was sobering to see Jesus dressed in such symbolic and heavy clothing, but even then, Jesus was still Himself, with His dancing, loving brown eyes as He smiled at her with love.
She followed Him down the stairs and outside, but the girl was already having a really hard time seeing and then they were at the door and she looked around and said, “I remember this place,” because she did- except it was a side door and not the front double doors.
Steady, Jenny, steady, Jesus whispered, looking down at her as they stood at the threshold of this door.
“I’ll try, I’ll try,” she said, breathlessly, determined that she would by faith and in trust, try and receive all that He was giving her to see and to learn all He wished to teach her.
He took the hand of the girl and they went in and immediately it was so overwhelming to her that she cast her eyes down. The brilliant golden light was like a haze that filled her vision and the room, but she could hear the whispering of countless people and feel the heat of them, as though she had walked into a packed auditorium.
Though she kept her eyes on the golden, glowing floor, it was also as though she could see beyond herself from somewhere behind or over herself, so that through the golden haze she saw what was a countless multitude of people that stretched out on all sides to the very limit of her vision.
Where Jesus stood, the crowd parted and this parting made a pathway over the gorgeous golden flooring, which the girl was trying with all her concentration to keep her eyes on and was clinging to Jesus as though her life depending upon it, as she felt in a very real since it did. The girl was worried that maybe her timidity and reluctance was embarrassing Jesus in front of these people, but He did not look embarrassed, He looked confident and full of love- love of all the people there.
Moved by something she didn’t know, the girl looked up for one moment and in the line of people or persons, saw that shape of what she though must be some type of angel that she had seen before.
“Jesus,” she whispered to Him and He stopped and looked down at her and she looked over at that person and she said, “Do I know him?” She meant, is that the personage I met before?
Yes, Jesus said, smiling, looking where she was looking.
The girl looked down again, but she had seen that although there was no room possible that could contain all these individuals, the walls of the Temple- in some way translucent and expanding- had seemed to contain them, so that the girl had the impression of being both in an enclosed space in a close packed group, and yet also in a space as far as the horizon filled with people.
She had seen the landscape on which they stood, and it was as though the land were lit by a dimly golden light- the light was intensely gold where she was, but also the horizon was lit by light that was not yet fully arrived- as though the sun were just under the horizon and the light was spreading upward.
The girl knew they were going toward where Papa stood, but she tried not to think about that, because it was too much. She could not see Him, only a golden cloud in the center of the building filling a space designated by pillars. They stepped into the golden cloud that obscured the center of the throne room and it was dark in there- a very holy darkness.
“Where are we?” she whispered to Jesus.
The holy of holies, He replied, and she was terrified, but Jesus reminded her that she entered the holy of holies often, easily and without dread; whenever she was caught up in ecstatic worship of Him, she was entering the holy of holies. Jesus reminded her that He had torn the curtain by His death on the cross, and she was now free to enter.
Jesus gently pointed out that all the agony He had been through and His death on the cross had not been in vain, but He had brought mankind close to God, to be in close relationship with God.
The girl saw in the holy dark that there were stairs of carved ivory and they went up beyond her sight, and she knew Jesus wanted her to go up them and at first the girl could only say that she could not. But Jesus kept encouraging her to try, never losing His patience, but encouraging her gently in love, so she went up there with Him one step at a time, together. She would take one step and wait there with Him, and take another step, and wait there.
At the top of the stairs was the roof of the Temple building. The first impression the girl received was that she stood directly under the night sky in a way that was impossible. The night sky above her and around her was crowded with the colossal, dense bulk of spherical planets- some much larger than earth, and not one, but many and they all filled the space directly above and outward toward the horizon, and yet were not crashing into each other- were not touching each other.
In fact, between them or through them, the girl could still see stars and constellations as bright white lights in the night sky. Below the Temple were the lights of the city and the dark snowy landscape which spread out on all sides to the horizon which was lit with coming light, light that was rising up into the sky, but that had not yet spread out horizontally over the land. Part of the landscape was land and part of it was the sea and dividing the sea and the land was a strip of pale beach that went in a curve from the Temple to the point of greatest light at the horizon.
The girl did not see all of it at one time, but saw each thing and then the next thing as she looked up and then down and then out, until she knew herself to be standing amid massive impossibilities, and hauntingly beautiful. In the midst of this, the most pressing and intense sight was not around them, but next to them- on the roof beside was a cloud and she knew the cloud hid Papa and that she stood before Him.
Jesus kept reminding her and she kept trying to remember and Papa Himself kept saying, that He was truly her Father- she was His child. This was true, and so His love for her was the genuine, tender, deep and safe love of a father for his daughter and the girl managed barely to hang on to the edge of that through her fears- fears that the Father was terrible in His holiness, implacable in His demands, disdainful of anything less than perfection and deeply, wrathfully offended at her inability to trust Him.
These fears were almost deafening, but Jesus spoke through them, so in faith, she put out her hand for Abba to shake, very formally, which was the one absurd gesture her faith could offer in that moment.
Instead of being offended, Jesus and the Father were overflowing with great love and tender amusement and perfect understanding- after all, the Father knew exactly who the girl was as a unique individual- what time period and nationality she came from, and so were familiar with those gestures of welcome or greeting that the girl would naturally revert to in times of stress. With love and gentleness, Papa took her hand and held it firmly and He spoke to her.
Papa said, you asked Me something.
It wasn't until she heard Him say this that she remembered. All of a sudden, the girl remembered once asking the Father something. Normally, she never directly addressed her prayers to Him, for fear of dreadfully offending Him in some way, but in that particular case, her need was desperate and great, as she was being compressed under a load of condemnation so heavy she couldn't lift her head, and in those straits, she had put her request straight to the Father.
Strongly and firmly, as if closing a door on all else that could be spoken, Abba said, I created you.
It took the girl a moment to realize what this meant, but Abba repeated it several times until she got it- what He meant was, she was good, very good- like everything that He created, as He had declared over everything in the beginning. That was His intent from the beginning and now her original identity and His original intent in her was true- through Christ Jesus His Son, through Him she had been reborn, a new creation- good, very good, like her Father Himself, made in His image.
The girl went down to her knees and this was such a relief to her! It felt right and good to be kneeling before Abba, and Jesus knelt down with her, and the relief of being near Jesus and being on her knees steadied her.
At first, the fact that Jesus was kneeling beside her did not surprise the girl, because lots of times when she is with Jesus and she bends down or sits down to look at something, He also sits down with her. However, in a moment, she and Jesus were facing one another, still kneeling and Jesus held her two hands firmly in His and she felt Abba's hand on her head and knew also that His other hand was resting on Jesus.
This sight and this knowledge was immediately rejected by the girl, as if in essence, she turned her face away from seeing something that she felt could not possibly be for her to know. But Jesus, swiftly and wordlessly, reminded her of a time years previously, when the girl had been resting in the presence of Jesus- not with sight, as that had not yet opened up, but knowing in her spirit that she was in the presence of Jesus- knowing this all day long and all night long. At that time, as she had been with Him while going about her day, she had felt the Father turn herself to Jesus, and Jesus to herself, as though to face one another At that time, that alone seemed too great to be understood and so she had simply written it down.
Now, in obedience to Jesus' leading she tried to grasp the growing pattern, this little illustration of something too large to hold, too large to be about only herself.
Jesus kept encouraging her to made the connection, to come to the conclusion and to accept the meaning of what she was seeing and so in sheer obedience and because Jesus was persistent, she did- it was like a marriage ceremony. It was as though Papa was giving a marriage blessing.
Think about this, Jesus insisted. Consider this, what this is, what is happening.
He was insistent. He told the girl that this union was one that Papa planned before the world was created and He had blessed and brought it about, because this union with Christ Jesus is at the heart of who we are in Christ. Because that is the joy that was set before Jesus, and He, Papa and the Holy Spirit are one and the most beautiful and powerful symbol for that, to the girl's understanding, was the union of marriage, with the mystery and beauty and vulnerability, the belonging that no one else sees or enters or knows but the one within.
And Jesus reminded her how it was the Spirit and the bride that said, “Come!”
And who were they telling to come, Jesus asked, patiently, if that invitation was extended only at the conclusion?
*
The next morning, the verse was on her calendar was:
“He gave them bread from heaven. They ate the food of angels! God gave them all they could hold.”
-Psalm 78:24-5
*
Oh God, you have prepared for those who love you such good things as surpass our understanding: pour into our hearts such love towards you, that we, loving you in all things and above all things, may obtain your promises, which exceed all that we can desire; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen
The Spirit and the bride say, “Come!”
And let the one who hears say, “Come!”
Let the one who is thirsty come;
and let the one who wishes
take the free gift of the water of life.
-Revelation 22:17
