Kathie Costos
March 30, 2021
Are you celebrating Easter this year? Are you doing the Easter Bunny and chocolate eggs kind of celebrating, or the life of Jesus, His Death and Resurrection type of celebrating? If you celebrate the rest of the year the secular way, then why not celebrate the rest of the year the Holy Way? The secular way won't keep you full, comforted and happy all year but the Holy Way will. After all, it is a happier way to live.
This is Holy Week for most Christians. I am Greek Orthodox, and our's begins May 2. It is a time that we reflect on the life of Jesus and His Sacrifice for the rest of us. Hundreds of years before His birth, it was in the Scriptures.
Isaiah 53
If PTSD is eating up hope, then remember that. Remember the miracles Jesus delivered and the messages He came to share from God. Then remember that He came to pay for our sins so that we would find forgiveness, but also, so that we would know that we are loved!
Isaiah 53
Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
2 He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
3 He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.
4 Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted.
5 But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.
6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
7 He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.
8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away. Yet who of his generation protested? For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was punished.
9 He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth.
10 Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the Lord makes his life an offering for sin, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand.
11 After he has suffered, he will see the light of life and be satisfied; by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities.
12 Therefore I will give him a portion among the great, and he will divide the spoils with the strong because he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.
Did he see the future in a dream, or did God tell him what he would not live long enough to see?
Today there is a special video I wanted to share. It is by the group Yes, And You And I.
Commentary on YES, And You And I1. A man conceived a moment’s answers to the dream.Now you know what the song means.
“The dream” What is “The dream?” This is the key factor in this verse.
One of the constant factors in mystical religious material across all generations, across all centuries and across all religions is the notion that the universe is God's dream, and that we all live our lives in that dream. For those of you who scoff, the Bible itself is clear about this. Before he creates the temple in the book of Exodus, Moses is taught by YHWH how to build it. YHWH shows him the real temple, the temple in Heaven, and God tells him to make the earthly temple as a copy of the real temple. In 1 Corinthians, St. Paul talks about how we now see through a glass darkly, as though we are peering through the fog and cannot truly see the real picture of truth or God. Eventually we will see him--God, face to face. It's just like being in a dream.
Formerly, we were dead in our trespasses and sins, but now we are alive. That is a more powerful image than the notion of a dream. To be dead and become alive is very similar to being asleep and becoming awake.
Think of your own life. How many times have you looked at other people and thought they are dead inside? I see cranky people all the time and wonder if they are having a bad day, or if they ever had a good one in their lifetime.
I see politicians making speeches and think how horrible it is that they seem so proud of themselves, while lying and doing evil things with their power. Look at their eyes and see how they let their soul be slaughtered in exchange for power. Yet even they are not beyond redemption to God. If He will still forgive them, and love them, why would think He couldn't forgive and love you too?
If PTSD is eating up hope, then remember that. Remember the miracles Jesus delivered and the messages He came to share from God. Then remember that He came to pay for our sins so that we would find forgiveness, but also, so that we would know that we are loved!
Just because you may have been involved in something terrible, that does not make you terrible.
Because you may have terrible thoughts, that does not mean that is all you are capable of thinking.
Because you cannot feel love as deeply as you once did, that does not mean you will never be able to.
People see you've changed but they do not understand where it came from. They have no way of knowing unless you talk to them. If they are changes for the worse, like your unhappiness or anger, they wonder what they did wrong. They may not want to be around you anymore. If they see you change to be happier and more patient, then they want to be around you.
All you are going through means "for now," but does not have to be all there is for you in the next moment. It is like being asleep, walking through your life, until you can become awakened and live a happier life.
Besides, someone is praying for you right now so that you can tell others where changes they see in you came from....God's LOVE!
Remember, it is your life...get in and drive it! #BreakTheSilence and #TakeBackYourLife from #PTSD
(I misspoke in this video and said that Isaiah wrote about it in the Bible...but I meant Scriptures. That is what happens with a no edit, no notes video. Forgive me.)
Remember, it is your life...get in and drive it! #BreakTheSilence and #TakeBackYourLife from #PTSD
And You And I
YES
A man conceived a moment's answer to the dream
Staying the flowers daily, sensing all the themes
As a foundation left to create the spiral aim
A movement regained and regarded both the same
All complete in the sight of seeds of life with you
Changed only for a sight of sound, the space agreed
Between the picture of time behind the face of need
Coming quickly to terms of all expression laid
Emotions revealed as the ocean maid
All complete in the sight of seeds of life with you
Coins and crosses never know their fruitless worth
Cords are broken, locked inside the mother earth
They won't hide, oh, they won't tell you
Watching the world, watching all of the world
Watching us go by
And you and I climb over the sea to the valley
And you and I reached out for reasons to call
Coming quickly to terms of all expression laid
Emotions revealed as the ocean maid
As a movement regained and regarded both the same
All complete in the sight of seeds of life with you
Sad preacher nailed upon the coloured door of time
Insane teacher be there reminded of the rhyme
There'll be no mutant enemy we shall certify
Political ends, as sad remains, will die
Reach out as forward tastes begin to enter you
I listened hard but could not see
Life tempo change out and inside me
The preacher trained in all to lose his name
The teacher travels, asking to be shown the same
In the end we'll agree, we'll accept, we'll immortalize
That the truth of man maturing in his eyes
All complete in the sight of seeds of life with you
Coming quickly to terms of all expression laid
As a moment regained and regarded both the same
Emotion revealed as the ocean maid
A clearer future, morning, evening, nights with you
And you and I climb, crossing the shapes of the morning
And you and I reach over the sun for the river
And you and I climb, clearer towards the movement
And you and I called over valleys of endless seas
Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: Jon Anderson / Chris Squire / Steve Howe / Bill Bruford
