https://open.spotify.com/episode/6goEKrOaCzMvp6isM3PHqB?si=H7eGoNNYQPymsmSw91LLmQ
Pray, even if you feel nothing, see nothing... For when you are dry, empty, sick or weak, at such a time is your prayer most pleasing to God — even though you may find little joy in it. This is true of all believing prayer. Pray inwardly, even if you do not enjoy it. It does good, though you feel nothing. Yes, even though you think you are doing nothing.
Prayer is the deliberate and perservering action of the soul. It is true and enduring and full of grace. Prayer fastens the soul to God, and makes it one with God’s will.
Jesus did not say, ‘You will never have a rough passage, you will never be overstrained, you will never feel uncomfortable.’ But he did say, “You will never be overcome.” We need to fall, and we need to be aware of it — for, if we did not fall, we should not know how weak and wretched we are, of ourselves; nor should we know our maker’s marvelous love so fully.
But for I am a woman, should I therefore live that I should not tell you the goodness of God? I was wholly at peace, at ease and at rest, so that there was nothing upon earth which could have afflicted me. This lasted for a time, and then I was changed. I felt there was no ease or comfort for me, except faith, hope and love — and truly, I felt very little of this.
And then presently God gave me again comfort and rest for my soul; and then again, I felt the pain, and then afterwards, the delight and joy. Now the one, and now the other, again and again — I suppose about twenty times.
But Jesus, who, in this vision informed me of all that is necessary for me, answered and said, “It is necessary that there should be sin. But all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.” And I saw that nothing truly happens by accident or luck, but everything by God’s wise providence. If it seems to be accidental luck from our point of view, our blindness and lack of foreknowledge is the cause. For matters that have been in God’s foreseeing wisdom, since before time began, befall us suddenly, all unawares. And so in our blindness and ignorance, we say that this is accident or luck. But to our Lord God, it is not so.
For here we are so blind and foolish that we never seek God until, out of God’s goodness, the divine is shown to us. It is when we do see something of God, by grace, that we are stirred by that same grace to seek God. And with earnest longing, to still see more of that blessedness. So I saw God, and sought God. I had, and wanted God.
It seems to me that this is, and should be, an experience common to us all. Where do we begin? Begin with the heart. Be a gardener: dig a ditch, toil and sweat — and turn the earth upside down, and seek the deepness, and water plants in time. Continue this labor, and make sweet floods to run, and noble and abundant fruits to spring. Take this food and drink, and carry it to God as your true worship.
Until I am essentially united with God, I can never have full rest, or real happiness. God is nearer to us than our own spirit. For we are so preciously loved by God, that we cannot even comprehend it. No created being can ever know how much, and how sweetly and tenderly, God loves them. It is only with the help of grace that we are able to perservere in spiritual contemplation, with endless wonder, at God’s high, surpassing, immeasurable love — which our Lord, in such goodness, has for us.
God is the ground, the substance, the teaching, the teacher, the purpose and the reward for which every soul labors. Our Savior is our true mother, in whom we are endlessly born, and out of whom we shall never come. See that I am God, see that I am in everything. See that I do everything. See that I have never stopped ordering my works, nor ever shall, eternally. See that I lead everything onto the conclusion I had ordained for it, before time began, by the same power, wisdom and love by which I made it. How can anything be amiss? The fullness of joy is to behold God in everything.
The greatest honor we can give Almighty God is to live gladly because of the knowledge of God’s Love. Love was without beginning; is, and shall be, without ending. Truth sees God, and wisdom contemplates God, and from these two comes a third, a holy and wonderful delight in God, who is Love.
Peace and Love are ever in us, living and working. But we be not always in peace and in love. The fruit and the purpose of prayer is to be One with and like God in all things. Our life is all grounded and rooted in Love, and without Love we may not live.
For this is our Lord’s will, that our prayer and our trust be both alike — large. For if we trust not as much as we pray, we do not fully worship our Lord in prayer, and also we tarry and pain ourself. The cause is, as I believe, that we know not truly that our Lord is ground on whom our prayer springeth. And also, that we know not, that it is given us by the grace of God’s love. For if we truly knew this, it would make us to trust, to have of our Lord’s gift, all that we desire.
It is easy to understand that the best deed is well done, and so well as the best deed is done, the highest, so well is the least deed done! And all thing in its property, and in the order that our Lord has ordained it, from without beginning. For there is no doer but God.
“All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”