From: Bolaji Irawo

Sent: 01 November 2006 16:45
To: Paul Anderson-Walsh
Subject: I heard your tears

I heard your tears
Listening to your tapes, a while ago
I heard a cry that must have come from the depths of your soul
Then you said it was for the saved and stuck saint
Caught in the grip of religions deceit

I heard the cry
But the pain was muted by the thoughts in my mind
Was it just for the saints or the one who died
So I concluded it was probably both

Yesterday, as I was pondering where I had been
And the joy of my present reality
I considered the plight of those still caught in my past
How I desire that they enjoy this walk with me

Then I heard that cry again
This time it was mine.
I remembered your tears and then I felt your pain
It was also now mine

The cry said "it ought not to be"
The pain said "I know just how it is, I came from there myself"

We hear the cry
It belongs to the one who died to set them free
We feel the pain
It belongs to the one who gave them everything to enjoy

Then I understood, why we heard that cry
It became clear why we felt the pain
It is the very same Christ indwelling us
It is He who cries the tear and feels the pain
Through you and through me

So now, the cry and pain translates
Into a call to be one of those
Through whom His truth will flow to set them free
Reaching out as His loving arms to bring healing to the hurting saints

He is faithful, Who will also do it
We can do all things through the one
Alive in us

Shalom

Frank

From: Paul Anderson-Walsh
To: 'Bolaji Irawo'
Sent: Wednesday, November 01, 2006 6:39 PM
Subject: RE: I heard your tears

Ummmm how interesting, I would very much like to publish you re email together with my reply and any subsequent dialogue on the matter as a blogg entitled A Frank Discussion and with your permission I will do just that.

I was intrigued by your observations. How right you are you see extreme identification is what happens to us when His gospel becomes our gospel. Pain is the burden of the intercessor; the life of the father [or mystically speaking the mother Rachel weeping for her children]. Now that s a bit much for some folk but it is what it is.

The apostle Paul s was a life spent writing in pain but yet paradoxically he found himself rejoicing in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am completing what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church.. Col 1:24

I have often considered his life; one lived in constant anguish of childbirth [Gal 4:19] for his beloved churches until Christ was formed in them all. This is the life that we are called to if we are called to the role of spiritual directors. Yet as one of the mystics of old so wisely told us: It is not that I have joy in spite of the cross; rather I have joy because of it. It seems that the divine purpose of taking the apostle into the tomb was that he might turn his life into a womb for - I became its servant according to God's commission that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known, 26 the mystery that has been hidden throughout the ages and generations but has now been revealed to his saints Col 1:25-26

What a joy to know that we feel what he feels as he lives his life through us and for us and as us. May our spiritual children be as Abraham as numerous as the stars and may they too shine as brightly.

Agape

Paul

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