Good morning…
For those who have followed our everyday blog for a while, you know I love my dear friend Betty Skinner. Betty and I first met through the pages of the sacred book chronicling her spiritual journey, The Hidden Life Awakened by Kitty Crenshaw and Dr. Cathy Snapp. The story of God meeting Betty very intimately in the deep valley of clinical depression at age forty-two helped to amplify God’s voice for me when I found myself in a similar valley at age forty-four in 2007. To this day, God continues to walk with Betty and I daily, she nearly blind, deaf, and lame in her nursing home in Ponte Vedra, Florida and me rooted in the bustling busyness of Atlanta, Georgia. Though we live in separate places, our spirits are constantly joined with the Spirit of God who is healing us whole.
Now I think to myself, “God, what excerpt from this life-changing book do I share as a celebration on Betty’s 95th birthday?” I can’t sleep until I discern the single book segment intended as a gift of gratitude to God for Betty. After flipping through the well-worn, wildly underlined pages, I happen upon the following gift.
“At last, the messenger becomes the message,” says Betty. “I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. We finally see that everything in our lives – all of the pain and all of the beauty – has been woven together into the huge tapestry of divine love. The will is disciplined, the old voices are quieted, the heart is surrendered, and we hear only the voice of the Beloved saying, ‘I love you; I have loved you since the beginning of time. I will not abandon you.’ Pure Spirit touches pure spirit and the love of God pours through us, empowering us to give the gift of divine love to others simply being present to them.” (215)
In her 95th birthday season, unfortunately I cannot be physically present with Betty. With COVID, visitors are not allowed. Yet God has developed between us the art of “simply being present,” woven together from afar. We are empowered to the give God’s gift of divine love to each other, our pure spirits empowered by Pure Spirit. We no longer live separated, but Christ lives in and between us.
Both Betty and I seek to embody God’s truth: “My old identity has been co-crucified with Messiah and no longer lives; for the nails of his cross crucified me with him. And now the essence of this new life is no longer mine, for the Anointed One lives his life through me—we live in union as one! My new life is empowered by the faith of the Son of God who loves me so much that he gave himself for me, and dispenses his life into mine!” (Galatians 2:20, TPT).
My awakening spirit dispenses a wholehearted, “Happy 95th birthday, Betty!” and somehow I sense her awakening spirit hears.
…Sue…
