Good morning…
“Love is that condition in the human spirit so profound that it allows one to survive and, better than that, to thrive with passion, compassion, humor, and style,” reads the cover quoting wise spiritual mentor Maya Angelou. When I delightfully dished over ninety-nine cents last week at Goodwill, I had no idea this journal would capture notes from my visit with Christian mystic Betty Skinner.
Candidly I shared our story with you in yesterday’s blog post Why Betty Is In My Bundle. In 2007, Betty’s rising, powerful spirit took the hand of my frail, sinking spirit from the book pages chronicling her life, The Hidden Life Awakened by Kitty Crenshaw and Dr. Cathy Snapp. Over these years of being mentored by deep spiritual friendships with Betty, Kitty, and Cathy, I have experienced firsthand this life-giving truth: love truly is a condition in the human spirit which allows us to survive. Even better than that, the love of God poured through surrendered human hearts allows us to thrive. We thrive with passion. We thrive with compassion. We thrive with humor and our own unique style.
Over our lifetime, we are invited to uncover the loving destiny for which we are designed. God’s story is our story, and this is how our story begins.
This is the detailed story of the Eternal God’s singular work in creating all that exists. On the day the heavens and earth were created, there were no plants or vegetation to cover the earth. The fields were barren and empty, because the Eternal God had not sent the rains to nourish the soil or anyone to tend it. In those days, a mist rose up from the ground to blanket the earth, and its vapors irrigated the land. One day the Eternal God scooped dirt out of the ground, sculpted it into the shape we call human, breathed the breath that gives life into the nostrils of the human, and the human became a living soul (Genesis 2:4-7, VOICE).
“When human body meets divine spirit, soul is born,” the footnote for these verses reads. “Divine breath and sculpted earth come together to make up the living soul. For thousands of years, philosophers and theologians have posed the question: what is a human being? Here God gives the answer.”
God’s answer shapes our personal answers each day. Inhaling and exhaling the breath of God, our living soul embodies enduring wisdom: “Love is that condition in the human spirit so profound that it allows one to survive and, better than that, to thrive with passion, compassion, humor, and style.” Each believer has received a gift that manifests the Spirit’s power and presence. That gift is given for the good of the whole community (1 Corinthians 12:7, VOICE).
My story is Betty’s story. Our story is yours. Through our single lifetime, each one of us is designed not just to survive but to thrive, adding our chapter in the redeeming story of our Eternal God. The plan wasn’t written out with ink on paper, with pages and pages of legal footnotes, killing your spirit. It’s written with Spirit on spirit, his life on our lives! (2 Corinthians 3:6, MSG).
…Sue…
