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Truth
Maybe it’s because I’m old, truly old in number, not in spirit and energy. My life has been so wild, crazy, extraordinary, blessed - that I can only believe there is a magnificent God of us all. He saves us. He has saved me over and over. He leads us. He has opened doors for me over and over. He loves each of us. He has birthed a heart in me that is out of control with love for the most difficult ones to love. From childhood, it exploded when I saw someone suffering, especially someone of any color but my own. Today, my ancient wrinkly skin is mottled with all kinds of colors what we called freckles. And many are heart shaped. I feel I’m blessed with all colors somehow. But it’s probably just my wish. I don’t know why. But I knew I loved the poor and our African Americans from the start, as if it was my mission to make a difference. And life has been like that ever since.
 Probably thinking - why does this woman talk so much about love? It’s because that is Me. My motor runs on love from the heart. God has given me such an abundance of love it keeps me running and positive even when locked in isolation for too many months and not able to do anything for anybody - the kind of bodies who are sad, lonely, scared, feisty, suffering, —
I sit closed up with wifi, electricity, food brought by great friends, waiting to speak on the iPhone with my husband and dogs in Uruguay 3 times a day. We finally figured out Facetime. Makes a difference. I guess my favorite moments in this coronavirus war is when the TV screen, through something called Zoom, can bring together 20, 50, 100 or more singers and musicians to bring us a song that makes us feel good, that God hasn’t given up on us because look how miraculous mechanics can be in a time of stress and disorder and fear. Music is a must to keep a smile on our face and love in our hearts, even though, in a room or a crowd, it is about the worst way to spread the virus.
Yes, God has put love in all of us. He loves each one of us whether we believe it or not. Like it or not. He birthed each one in the beginning and forever. John wrote: everyone who believes Jesus is Christ has been born of God. But I believe, if history is real, we were all born of God from the beginning. In fact, Jesus’ task as a man on earth was to convince humans that the soul is all about love. It is the power that gives life. God’s love. God’s forgiveness. Jesus’s last words were “Forgive them Father for they know not what they do.” Jesus always tried to assure His followers and everyone else within hearing distance that as God the Father loves and gives His son, Jesus the Man shares and shows this same powerful endless love to all of us. Love one another, He tells His disciples. Yes. Go, bear fruit forever even when all else fails. Love one another.
Soldiers who save each other on battlefield - men and women who are thrown into a virtual situation to save their people and countries - these learn that love is what it is all about. Love explodes in their hearts and they risk everything to save each other and the whole picture of their nation not because it is correct or part of the job of being a soldier under enemy fire, but because we are all human and carry Christ in us. It’s that same courage and heart that we see with doctors and nurses and hospital staffs and ambulance medics, risking life and putting on the armor of life, my life for your life. All these are so perfectly what Jesus tried to inspire in his first disciples for them to pass on from generation to generation, however impossible or beautiful this earthly life happened to be.
You don’t have to be a King, or Royalty or a Dictator or President to be important, or to be recorded in some way in history. In the days of yore, what about all the servants, slaves, those who worked the fields, swept floors of castles, cared for the steeds of the knights, washed the long robes of the Jewish priests and carried the gear of the crusaders. We can go further back to things which supposedly were passed down through the ages (or up through the ages?) and how can we trust a story has not been distorted by opinion, by the speaker, by the writer, by the powers that be - because surely today it is the writer’s, the thinker’s, the creator’s world. Truth or not. Those who write or lecture or speak or pronounce set the norm, the fact, the history - at least they have up until this moment when cell phones have become the “gods” of today.
In early times, who watched the saints, who knew their routines, their births and favorite things? Who knew the upbringing by their parents and what was the style, mode, popular activities, the risks, the fears they had about breaking from the norm, their society, their family dictates? Saints were born with courage and love in their hearts, and a determination to do what God, through prayer and inspiration, requested them to do or be. There is more out there to know in order to fit in or to survive, but really, we don’t know our own selves, our possibilities, our curiosities that lack answers. We don’t listen to others without being ready to jump in with our opinion or solution, which we seem to think is important. Answers aren’t always answers but maybe new challenges, new paths to attempt, to tackle, to explore - we don’t accept truth often from the inside, but from the outside - we pretend to understand and agree, but no one knows our inside, our internal reactions and beliefs, we smile and we enter a conversation, but we are off the paths we normally rely on to get us home. Pain, Joy, Thought, the Word. Is something accurate? We know our accuracy, what we have learned, know, studied, seen - but is what we know or they know the truth?
Bishop William Godfrey told me often “don’t defend yourself.” I don’t have to explain, I don’t have to answer, just do and that is the activity and the reason we are servants of God.
As I say often, we are the fingers of His hand that were pierced on the Cross. We are His hope, His truth, His offspring left behind to keep on keeping on, to believe, bless, encourage and give hope and share that amazing grace with all in need - and that’s about 99.9 per cent of the world. We aren’t here to criticize, to order, to insult or judge - we are to have mercy, grace, and love.
Being vulnerable with one’s heart is often full of disappointment and danger because so many use and abuse it. I certainly know that with my failures . But we must never give in, give up, get acid or bitter, we must keep that heart blown up with compassion and love. Because you may try and try to attempt to make a difference in someone’s life, yet you feel it’s a waste, a failure, a disaster, but it’s not. Somehow, we lovers might be crucified but we leave some sort of change in the people we’ve tried to believe in, and to love hard. Without God, there is no true love. And so if you are a messenger of God’s love, there is going to be a mark on whomever you touch, if only a drop. It will magnify somehow in that person’s heart, in spite of themselves.
~ Rev
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audrey@audreytaylorgonzalez.com
www.audreytaylorgonzalez.com
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