THERE IS NOTHING SYMBOLIC ABOUT HIM... HIS PRESENCE IS REAL....Glenda Green describes what it was like when the Master appeared and sat with her for four months while she painted His portrait... Chapter 1 “He Spoke” As anyone might expect, the Master’s presence is awsome. I was also privileged to know how human, warm, caring, and even humorous He can be. Until recently, however, that was an untold aspect of my experience with Him, even though it was the best part for me. The unique and wonderful aspect about a visitation which lasted for more than four months is that there was enough time to be personal, to share, and to become acquainted in the way friends do. In this conscious and caring communion, we had many conversations about topics large and small. . Altogether, it was more than I could share with others for more than four years. So I regarded our communion as simply His private gift to me. When anyone would ask me for deeper insights about the visitation, I would just say, Love is what it’s all about.” . From time to time, I would mention to my husband, Brian, and others that Jesus and I had exchanged some bits of communication. That seemed to fit within the scope of their expectations, for after all, if a vision could be so alive and so enduring as to “sit for a portrait,” then why wouldn’t there also be some measure of communion which could be translated into words? That was their logic, and so I left well enough alone, preferring to let a blanket of silence conceal the fact that we had [extensive conversations] during our time together. Once the floodgate was open, I knew there would be no stopping the questions that would pour through it, most especially, “What did He say?” However, in the spring of 1996, Jesus appeared to me again and asked me to speak. . There is a staggering responsibility that goes along with relaying His words. There are a number of good reasons why I had been reluctant to bring His messages into a public forum. In the first place, they were presented as a subjective response to my inquiries, issues, and pursuits. The questions I asked were, in many ways a mirror of [my] soul and His answers were often directed to the core of [my] being. It has taken four years of distance from the point of subjective impact for me to think upon His words with any objective detachment. . It is also not my desire to filter His presence for you, or to tell you what to think about Him. I am certainly not a theologian. It is my hope that I can clearly relay His messages as if they were spoken to you in the first person. Then you can interpret them as you will. They can touch your heart and mind in a manner appropriate to your understanding of Him or you relationship to Him. For this reason, I have chosen to present all of His words in italics. That way you may understand them in their original context or separate them, if you wish, from any nuance or meaning cast upon them from my side of the equation. . Above all, I recommend that you receive these messages through the heart, and remembering always, this was a conversation, not a dissertation. He was not composing a new scripture; neither was He delivering a new Sermon On The Mount. He was simply talking to a friend. Like any normal conversation, ours would have many ramifications. One thing would lead to several other related topics without prescribed agenda as the drift carried it, and as our hearts directed. The conversations grew in power, length, and intensity as our relationship developed over that period of time. I have harvested the jewels from it and, hopefully, if I have strung the pearls together well, His words will provide you a personal message which is greater than the sum of its parts. . It was only with respectful restraint that I ever asked anything at all. I did not want to take advantage of His position. He had honored me enough by just being present, and I did not want to assume rights that might no exist, to pry into subjects or areas of knowledge that were not mine to pursue. As a measure of that respect, I waited for Him to initiate all conversations in the beginning. . The first thing He ever said to me was [“Glenda, love is who you are.”] At that moment, I had no idea how important His statement was or how central it would be to everything He would say. For the time being I was just content to hear His voice. It was baritone, rich and melodious, full and manly. The sound of His voice was so deeply nurturing and satisfying that I felt like the Biblical “woman at the well.” It was like clear water that quenched my thirst. Hearing it was enough. How often do we read and seek, only to find ourselves even more thirsty? Not with Him. He could speak one word and I was quite content. There was no need to supplement His words with other readings, or to ask endless questions. Even though I often felt like a child in His presence, the feeling never extended to the point of regarding him as a “Daddy” whose patience could be tried with childish curiosities. You might be thinking, “Glenda, you could have asked the secretes of the universe.” Eventually I did, but for the most part it was enough to know the One who had [mastered] the universe. Why did I need to ask anything? His presence brought with it a wonderful serenity and contentment that kept me always at peace. . At first I was afraid that I would not be able to work in His presence and still be absorbed in my typical studio routine. Art is a process which goes best when the artist surrenders to random and unpredictable possibilities. Frankly, the physical side of an artist’s environment is often less than tidy, although stronger adjectives than that may appropriately describe my workspace! How could I “roll out the red carpet” and still be my usual, creative, sloppy self? . Miraculously, Jesus made that possible. I supposed He considered it His first task to make me comfortable enough to do my job, which was to produce the painting. It was necessary that I be able to paint in my normal way and He assumed responsibility for that. . He took pleasure in the things I enjoyed, was patient with my coffee breaks, amused Himself with my procedures, and often made polite suggestions as to how I might do it better. He made me feel pretty, even though I usually wore blue jeans and sweatshirts, often had smears of oil paint on my face instead of makeup, and smelled of turpentine instead of roses. A perfect gentleman, He was kind, thoughtful, and relaxed. Never in His presence, did I feel deficient. At the same time, He led me to heights of perception, understanding, and inspiration which would have been inconceivable only days before, all with a grace and ease that made it seem so natural. . From the very beginning, I was in awe of how well He mastered the small as well as the large. The least thing, the simplest courtesy, the tiniest observation were all important to Him. . Actually, our conversations began with one small observation which was quite humbling to me. That first day, as I was drawing my initial sketch, I was sitting very close to the canvas, perhaps a foot away, because my eyesight was less than optimum. In the last few years I had become near-sighted, but I did not want to admit it. It was a condition I had decided to tolerate as long as possible, because my love for visual beauty was too pure to have it filtered through ground glass. If I could have persuaded the highway department to renew my driver’s license, then I would have had the problem well in hand. But Jesus saw me straining, and said, [“Glenda, are you having some trouble with your eyes?”] . I deflected the question, not wanting to answer it fully. So I remarked, “I’ve just been having some eye strain lately from my nervousness. And I didn’t get much sleep last night . . . the excitement and all.” It bothered me, however, as I wasn’t being completely truthful. . Later than night, Brian asked me how the day went, and I said, “Oh, it was wonderful. I don’t have the words to describe it, but I have to confess I feel a little guilty about one thing. He asked me a question which I didn’t answer honestly.” I explained what happened, and despite all consolations, there was no containing my nervousness about still having the same problem the next day when I would see Jesus again. . It was not until a couple of weeks after the painting was finished that I discovered a miracle had happened. As I straightened my desk, there were those glasses, abandoned beneath layers of clutter. It’s possible that I wore them once or twice, but somewhere in the course of being in His presence the affliction was healed. The reason I hadn’t noticed it until that moment was that in His presence, everything was always perfect. There were no negative standards for measuring or exposing deficiencies! . A few weeks later, when I went to get my driver’s license, my eye test revealed that I had 20/20 vision without the glasses. I never wore them again. . If I had to regard anything as the crowning jewel of His message it would be the rulership of the heart. So many times He would say, [“Remember, Glenda, you are love.”] He would then proceed to give me greater understanding of the heart’ importance. His first comment to me about the heart triggered another response of embarrassment. . We were only two or three days into the painting and I was trying to make small talk with Him, mostly to put myself at ease. In my years a s portraitist, I had learned the importance of creating a comfort zone by directing attention away from the sitting. In relation to my esteemed guest, however, the pursuit of trivia seemed utterly inappropriate. So I nervously rebounded to the opposite mode of trying to impress Him. I shared with Him a color wheel which is my own original design. During my college years, I had expanded my curriculum to include physics as well as art in order to pursue the subject of optics, and to understand color more fully as light. From that pursuit, I developed and advanced color theory which had given me a nice little professional edge. This was a formula which had served me well and has given a unique flavor to my paintings. Most people who knew about it were impressed, and those who didn’t understand it just got quiet, or a little defensive. He simply looked at me—a bit sad. I was stunned with His silence. How could I respond to a feather wall . . .a point of no resistance? . After a while, He asked, [“Glenda, what is it about color that frightens you?”] It was like an arrow that went straight through the veil, right into my heart. No one had ever seen through me in that area about which I felt so confident. No one had ever seen through my defenses. He had [burst my bubble!] I sat there almost in tears because I had been seen so easily. I groped for words: “Why did you say that?” . [“Well, your mind is working overtime to compensate for something with which you are clearly uncomfortable. You do not have to know in order to love, for love is the power.”] . Exposed in my vulnerability, I struggled to explain, “It’s just that I love light and color so much, I never felt I could do them justice. The beauties of the universe thrill me to the core, and I feel inadequate in their presence.” . He assured me I had accomplished more by expressing the passions of my heart and releasing my fear, than I could eve had done through mental comprehension. He went on to say how the mind will look for troubles of the heart as fertile ground for dominating it. [“The mind will actively seek to compensate or to exploit the heart’s troubles, but it will never seek to remove or to cure them. For the heart’s despair is the mind’s option for power.”] . “Is the mind always that way?” I queried. . [“Well, often. But actually the mind can be a very good servant, if you allow it to be just that. You must realize and hold firmly to an understanding that the mind has no power of its own. The mind either integrates and projects form experience, or else it develops a logical matrix to serve, to explain, and to implement the powers of the heart and the soul. The problem arises when the heart is oriented negatively in some way toward life, because when the heart gives the mind a negative impulse such as insufficiency, insecurity, fear, or anger, the mind operates with reverse logic.”] . We have all seen that work. But at the moment I couldn’t think of any examples, so I asked him for one. . [“The most obvious example is imply the absence of data or experience—a tangible mystery—which the mind fills with its own inventions for fear of losing control.]” . [“But now, let’s look at this. When a man’s heart has become attuned to scarcity, his mind will work overtime to generate ways and means of making money. There’s a certain logic to this in relation to survival pressures, but it never solves the problem or changes the basic belief. The man just copes, or grows rich, to finance and perpetuate poverty consciousness in himself or others. And so he overworks to support a kind of material wealth which dominates his life but never results in a deep and true sense of prosperity. There is only compensation for lack, for the mind only solves problems of logic or balance—never problems of life. . [“The man’s poverty consciousness resulted from wearing so many blinders to the abundance of life that he eventually believed in scarcity and then invested in it. Now by comparison, there was another man who beheld the wondrous universe with awe as he expressed his gratitude for the infinite supply. This man has given his mind a positive impulse, and so his mind will seek ways to make that abundance real in his life. . [With less effort, greater prosperity is attained. The same is true of physical well being. A man who believes in illness will struggle all of his life to be well. And his mind will provide him many ways to prevent or to remedy the ailments without ever removing the source of trouble. Yet a man who believes in health and wholeness will set his mind to the positive service making it true. Given any negative belief or impulse the mind will operate dysfunctionally. There may be perfect logic, but applied in reverse mode (as if reflected by a mirror) to compensate for—not solve—the problem.”. Then with a sense of wonder, He looked around and out and said, [“My Father’s universe is infinite and infinitely abundant. By beholding and believing in this the mind can then work in a direct and proper way to bring abundance. If given a positive impulse the mind works properly. If given a negative impulse, the mind works in reverse. That is its logic. [“Just behold infinity. Behold, and be in awe of the infinite everlasting creation.”]. ~excerpt from Love Without End--Jesus Speaks (by permission of author), Glenda Green
Posted on: Tue, 21 Oct 2014 05:47:09 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015