Chamber Poems - Rev. Holmes

Truth in the inward parts is required.

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Episode Transcript

(00:05):
Ah, God, bless you,God, bless you, God, bless
you. Welcome to the hour ofDeliverance. And I am well, I'm
Reverend doctor Katie Holmes, fumbling witha book here just because I am not
a person who likes to be transparent. And I know that transparency is a

(00:28):
big thing in the body of Christ. Ever since, and I'm going to
put it this way on purpose,ever since Pat Robertson of the Seven Hundred
Club made that real popular. Idon't remember what year it was, I
remember I was watching the program atthe time. And because of the way

(00:50):
God brought me to Jesus Christ,and I've shared this often that I didn't
believe in God. I didn't thinkthere was a God by the time I
got to my teens, because Iwas brought brought in church almost every Sunday,

(01:11):
no matter which relative I stayed with, and I got to stay with
a lot of different relatives and theywould go to church. And oh,
I thought the inside of the church, it was just beautiful to me,
and the robe and robes and allof that. I loved the clothing and

(01:32):
the reverence that happened inside of whatI understood to be church. Now,
when I got older, I foundout that I was either in Presbyterian churches
or in Catholic churches. But Ididn't know the difference, and I saw
the difference that I some were justmore magnificent than others, but they all

(01:57):
had the stained glass that I thoughtwas so beautiful. And I didn't understand
about the Neil sit prey. Ienjoyed that as to respecting and reverencing God.
The thing of it is. Bythe time I got in my teens,
I had read so much and encyclopediasof rules and things, and listened

(02:22):
to most conversations that I had nobusiness as a child listening to, because
that generation of people said children areto be seen and not heard, and
because I was a sickly child,I was always around the adults, not
out playing with other kids or thatkind of thing, and I was always
listening to what the adults were talkingto each other, not to me.

(02:46):
Which is funny because yesterday I wasat an event and most of the older
adults were at a table or alot of and I was listening to the
conversation and it reminded me. Iknew I could go sit with them.

(03:07):
However, I was looking at somethingthat the Lord had spoken to me,
oh about three am the morning before, about the mountains and the hosts on
the mountains, and here where thisevent was when they told me to let

(03:27):
me know where a good place tosit was. Here, I'm facing the
very mountains that God was talking tome about at three am, so I
knew sit there and let God hearthe rest of what God was saying to
you. So as much as Iwanted to get to join the other of
us older people at the table,now there were older people all around,

(03:51):
but I heard me listening in ontheir conversations, and I was enjoying the
different things from the word that they'rebringing up with each other, and enjoying
them enjoying each other. However,I also was reminded that from a child,

(04:14):
I don't like to share me andtransparency. I remember being three years
old or younger and witnessing something overand over again. That's something that happened
a lot at that particular relative's house. I was too little to be allowed

(04:35):
to go to the outhouse, however, I was always looking out there because
military family and the men who they'dcome home in uniform, but as they
would stay home they weren't always inuniform until it's time to leave. But
those who I knew were the soldiers. They were always going out there,

(05:00):
and I didn't know it, likeI'm going to say it, I didn't
know it as under three years old, but I knew that they didn't have
to go to the bathroom that much, and they were always taking a lady
out there, beautiful lady, andthe beautiful lady always had clothes that didn't
match the uniform. Nomiie, thisis three years old or under that what

(05:29):
I thought and how I thought andcompared thing was only by the life I
lived. However, I remember seeingthat they'd go and laughing and happy and
come out, and the ladies veryoften were crying and sobbing. I was
a sickly child, and I knewcrying and sobbing meant you were in pain.

(05:53):
And I remember making the decision thatI will always protect myself, and
I understood protection from listening to thesoldiers talk about their orders. They didn't

(06:14):
usually didn't talk about actual combat,and that I noticed that they did not
share that. However, they wouldtalk about their orders and different they would
The word was in a different language, but comrades from then though from that

(06:38):
I learned one of the ways toprotect myself was not to share myself.
So by the time I came toknow the Lord, I had been through
the scriptures. I think I sharedwith you enough that I didn't believe in

(07:03):
God. I looked at the things, the awful things that would happen in
the earth, and but God isgood. I always heard God is good,
and my mother used to call Godthe good Lord. And God is
good. God is good. Godis good, So that God is good.
And the things that I looked aroundthat happened in the earth. And

(07:25):
also a family of a lot ofmen, and they were all hunters,
and I just thought it was socruel to shoot the rabbits and shoot the
squirrel, and then the deer.I would oh, even to this day,
the presence of deer has a majesticfeeling with me, and oh,

(07:48):
to shoot the deer. And Ididn't know the difference between deer and elk
until I saw their horns or antlers, And oh, I thought that was
so awful and so cruel. Andyet these men were doing what everybody thought
the men were supposed to do,and was necessary, necessito and for the

(08:13):
family to have food. So bythe time I got to my teens,
I thought, if there was aGod, I mean, God is good,
he wouldn't allow for all the awfulthings that I saw happen. Unfortunately,
I'd seen a lot of men fightone another almost to death and one

(08:35):
to death, I mean, andI thought God wouldn't do God he must
have left. If there was aGod, he left. Then by the
time the Vietnam War happened, Iwas just down right now, there's no
God. There's no God. Thething of it is from a child.

(08:56):
My older brother's a genius, andhe used to always teach me. I
thought everything he learned. Every singleday he'd come home and teach me,
and I'd read in the encyclopedias,and I'd ah. And for the things
that he would teach me, Igot to learn that by the time something's
written in a book, it's nottrue. Now, I not to say

(09:22):
it's not the whole truth, it'snot everything about it. There's more to
learn, there's more to add,however, when it's printed in encyclopedias.
And that's what I used to readin dictionaries and encyclopedias. By the time
it's in there. I noticed thatit's put in there as if it is
just the flat out truth, thecomplete truth. Whatever oxygen is this the

(09:48):
United States? Is that the severalthe you know. And every year there
was a I don't know, Iforget now what it was called, but
the makeup book, the new bookto add to. And it made me
realize that when things are printed,they're important and they're taken as the truth.

(10:13):
The only thing is the next thingprinted about it isn't. Now now
I understand just because of the wayGod does his word. I understand that
when God printed something, and hedid have written word before the Mosaic Law,
it's just that the Mosaic Law heleft God having the mind of God,

(10:41):
knowing his own eternal purpose, heleft for all the rest of time.
However, you look at canaan Abeland realized that they were obeying some
law to know, to bring thesacrifice, what even sacrifice to sacrifice at
a certain time, there was somekind of law, some kind of understanding,

(11:05):
you know, of Enoch. Anyway, I began to read up on
religions because I'd listened to the soldierscoming from other countries and hear them talk
about the other religions, and theyreally didn't have a respect for the different

(11:26):
religions of the countries that they hadserved in. So I would look them
up to learn about them, andI came to the conclusion, Now this
is way before I got to bea teenager. I came to the conclusion
that religions are what man uses tocontrol man, whether it's a whole nation

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or a different part, like partof the military. The thing of it
is. My older brother was alwaysa very articulate person and a persuasive person,
and probably still is, and Iwould just I learned to deal with

(12:09):
things in that manner, in thatway, so I would go and I
learned how to debate, and Icould show people adults older than me that
the thing that you believe in isa lot of nonsense because it causes you
to do this, that, andthe other. However, I would go
study the other religions and then Iwould see how everything to me kind of

(12:35):
connected in the sense of you createa God, and you cause people to
have superstition toward that God and reverencethat God, and then the person who's
in charge about that God and thosethings controls everything and everybody and that's how

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I saw it. However, Iwould study out the different religions, and
I was very good at proving thatthe thing of it is at one point,
and I had been very successful atdebating that. At one point,

(13:16):
though, I saw these sacred scriptures, and I made sure that I would
do sacred scriptures and not just thewritings on them, because I found here,
again like with encyclopedias, that thepeople that write on them write it
if that thing is the whole truth, and then somebody else will writes something
at another time one hundred years later, or somebody one hundred years before,

(13:39):
and you find that they had anotheraspect or something else to say. So
I would go after the actual sacredscriptures and see what they said. And
here at a certain age I foundout that, oh, there's these Coptic
scriptures. And I didn't know whatCOPTI was and found these Coptic scriptures,

(14:03):
and I had to teach myself Copticin order to translate these sacred scriptures.
And I did this for about ayear. I'm taking too long with this
explanation of why I don't like beingtransparent. And I would see these things

(14:26):
in these sacred Scriptures about a yearand a half to two years that I
was translating it. And I rememberI would say back then, the word
was boss. You know, thisGod is boss. If there was such
a thing as God, he'd belike this. This God he protects his
people way ahead of time and thenlets him know. And it's up to

(14:48):
them whether or not he believes,but he doesn't make them. He tells
them so that they can decide.And I love the fact that this God
was about free will, because mostreligions are about you follow what I say,
not free will. And oh,I just love this God. And
I used to say, if thereif there was a god, this God

(15:09):
ought to be served and if therewas a god, I would serve this
God. Well, by the timethe person who led me to the Lord
Jesus did that, and he gaveme a Bible to read, and it
wasn't a study Bible, though SchofieldReference Bible was popular during that day,

(15:33):
and that particular edition of Schofield ReferenceBible has been rescinded since then because of
the way that it had so manynotes on uh Ah that were considered prejudice.
But that was the popular study Bibleof the day. But he didn't
give me that. He gave mea bible very much like this here,

(15:56):
my little King James Bible. Andthere's hardly any notes in here at all.
People always say, how do Iread that? The font and all
that I'm trying to but and hereit started in Genesis and it went to
Revelation, and so I read itas a book. I started reading and
realized that I had spent that yearand a half to two years translating the

(16:22):
Pentateuch. And I say, like, Jeremiah, God, you tricked me.
He tricked me into loving him beforeI ever knew him, because I
just thought this God is. Ifthere was a God, he would be
like this now. In there,though, I learned how that everybody doesn't

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tell everything, and the different tribesthere to be about what they're about,
and God gave them what they're tobe about. I learned that of the
Lees, there's different I'm gonna say, I'm trying to think of the right
word, and there's not a rightword that won't offend somebody or make someone

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who knows about what I'm talking aboutmake them think that that's not what the
word says, and that's not whatthe hebrew says. And however, there
are different levels of the leevites,like not everybody's a high priest, and

(17:33):
then of the priests or every ofthe different ones that take care of,
pardon me, the house of God. Not everybody handles the tabernacle things.
Not everybody handles the same kind ofthings. And I learned also about the
offerings, that the offerings were handledin such a way so that worthiness,

(18:00):
righteousness was required. And even inone place where the people hadn't been giving
the offerings and the tithings, andthe way God had corrected it what we
call the basket at the door,and it wasn't to be counted except for
that. When the king saw thatthe houses and being taken care of,

(18:25):
he wanted the priests or those whowere in charge of the care of the
house and the care of the allof the things concerning the House of God.
They didn't have to give a report, a report, a report,
a report. The report was shownin what they did, and from that

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I understood that you do your job, and I also saw that God allowed
you to be a good steward ofthis. And the I don't want to
call it leftovers because God doesn't dealin leftovers. We're not leftovers. When

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this is your responsibility, you doall of this, and you do that
first. You take care of yourresponsibilities first, and then you have for
yourself and your family. And whenI would see that in the word,
I understood the way that we talkabout transparency today, that everything needs to

(19:34):
be open. One of the thingsof the School of Profits is that the
profits covered each other because when aprophet had what today we like to recognize
as a spiritual encounter and whatever makestheir uh, what is it my goose
bumps and that kind of thing,the profits were known to go into trance

(20:03):
like state, into the spirit andsee things, and the other prophets around
would cover them. And I don'tjust mean in a sense of the way
we like to put down I havea wrap on right here, the way
that if a lady falls out underthe spirit of God will put something over
her legs, so you know that'snot showing. They would cover them,

(20:25):
be around them so that they couldbe in the spirit and be protected.
And if being in the spirit causedthem, remember David, to come out
of their clothes. Their nakedness isn'tshown very much. The way the priests
their garments were such a way.Part of why I wear my clothing the

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way I wear my clothing is becauseyour nakedness is not to show when you're
ministering unto the Lord, and that'sa phrase from scripture. When I got
saved, it was one of thefirst churches who bought a theater that wasn't
popular back then, and so theyouth choir was always up on stage,

(21:11):
and I got to see how thatmany skirts were new, but many skirts
were just above the knee back thento where they've gotten to be. And
I got to see that when you'reup on stage, you can see all
up the girl's dresses. And Igot to see that because I saw some
of the young boys who were saveddoing that, and I would see how

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it would make them. Back then, I would say crazy. So I
asked God what to do. Ididn't realize it, and he gave me
to change my clothing. And Iwear long skirts all the time, and
back then I had my knee lengthskirt and my ankle length skirt, so

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that whenever I had to give atestimony in chirt and I had to be
up on stage, I had along skirtsy so that my nakedness be not
shown, because I learned that fromlevitical priesthood how the priests are to operate.
So that's a long way around forwhat I say. I make an

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excuse, except for I'm the onewho will tell you that ex use.
Excuse is an ex use. Don'tuse it anymore, heh don't. Nobody
wants to deal with an ex SoI repent, and I'm convicted of using
all kinds of x uses. Tonot share me, not share what God

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shows me, not share the poetrythat He's given me. And this I
call the Chamber poems. And Iused to God told me to publish him,
so I made it as if Iwas publishing them. This is decades

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ago. The Chamber Poems are alook into one woman's journey in a deep
refining process when truth in the inwardparts is not only desired, but required
to be conformed to the image ofChrist. Now for the ways that the

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body of Christ tends to think.I had been already ordained and pastoring for
years when this happened. You see, within the hour or so after the
Lord saved me, I asked himmake me like you make me I was

(24:04):
pleading with him, make me likeyou. The way that he saved me,
he transferred me and changed me socompletely in the instant, and I
knew that I was completely changed andcompletely different. And I thought I loved
because I was in love with theperson who led me to the Lord,
and I'd been in love with themfor a long time years and manya,

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I was still in my teens whenhe led me to the Lord. I
was twelve. First time I sawhim at a distance and loved him with
my heart. I was on myway to my grandparents' house in West Philadelphia.
I had to get the transportation,and I got to my big bomb

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in Big Pop's house, and I'mtelling them I saw the man I'm going
to marry, and I know thatit must have been a joke to them.
I was twelve years old, okayby the time he led me to

(25:11):
the Lord, and we completely brokeup because we both knew that we wanted
to be holy and live holy,since that's God is holy and that's what
he requires. And I just forthe way that he changed me, he
put love in me, and itmade me know that the way that I

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thought that I was love was sucha different dimension than his love. He
also took hatred out of me.I had no idea that I hated.
And part of why I had noidea is because I justified anything that I
thought was so awful that it oughtto be destroyed. I would add up

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all the things against it. Iused to want to be an attorney and
weigh it out, and if therewere more things that this ought to be
destroyed, then it ought to bedestroyed. I did not recognize that I
hated, with that I had hatred. I didn't know that I hated.

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And when Jesus saved me, justin an instant, like the blink of
an eye, That's why I haveno problem believing in the rapture in a
moment, in the twinkle of aneye, because when he saved me,
that twinkle of an eye was theway that he changed me in so many
ways, and I knew that Iwas changed. That it takes more than

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an hour of this program to sayall the ways that I was changed.
However he did it in a twinkleof an eye. And when I got
home, I'm like I so knewthat for all the things that I studied,
and I was knowledgeable of I knewthat I knew nothing, nothing,

(27:03):
even knowing that I studied, andI studied well. Ah, and I
had my big brother as a genius. I mean he was way better than
me. And ah, and Imake me like you, make me like
you, not my big brother father. Later that week, because I was

(27:26):
saved during a revival that had goneinto the second stage of revival every night,
and the preacher Ernestine Cleveland was hername. She since had gotten married
Ernestine Cleveland Reams, but she wasa preacher at Deliverance Evangelistic Church on seventeenth
of Lenago, and one of themessages she had preached, I got to

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understand anyway to move things forward.Years and I was ordained and pastoring for
year. And when God is thenight that I was saved, and I

(28:10):
got home and I said, God, make me like you. I heard
God out loud say yes, toldme yes, yes he would. And
I was looking for always looking inthe word for his way in. And
because my mother didn't want us travelingto certain parts of Philadelphia that she thought

(28:34):
were not nice parts to be andthe Catholic Church you had to anyway in
West oak Lane, we went toan episcopal church, and they gave you
a prayer book, and I usedto read the prayer book and pray the
prayers and the prayer book. Theonly thing is I got to understand,

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I don't know how to pray.I don't know what to pray. So
as I would read things in theworld, whenever somebody's prayer was there,
I would that would be my prayer. I would understand the context. That
was something that I learned very muchabout keeping things in context. And remember
I'd taught myself the language, okay, and of the Coptic, which wasn't

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Hebrew, it was Coptic, andI understood. I used to say,
God, you tricked me into lovingyou, tricked me into loving you before
you let me know you. Sothis isn't a babe. The Chamber poems

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looking into a one woman's journey ina deep refining process. He had refined
me already. He'd put truth insideof me, because he is truth.
And I'd been pastoring for years.This is not a babe. This is
a pastor. However, when Isaid make me like you, I probably

(30:11):
thought it was a once done kindof thing. It's a still going on
kind of thing. And several yearsin, he took me into my chamber.
I don't know what else to callit, but a chamber. It
wasn't a cave. It was achamber. And so I'm going through all

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that to let you know, nota babe, not a babe, A
seasoned woman of God, a seasonedpastor of God from a church that was
the testimony of churches, and afaith in God, toward God and of
God. Deliverance was all of thatback then. So the Chamber poems are

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my chronicling of a grueling truth inthe inward part trek. Despite two decades
of dynamically fruitful and diverse ministry,despite years of extreme success counseling others,

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despite intimate, unbroken fellowship with God, and perhaps because of it, he
took me into a chamber. I'vebeen doing okay. It wasn't that I
thought so, it wasn't that Iwas deceived. He let me know.

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He's the one who let me know. However, God had called me,
and most likely you, to astandard of excellence. I usually opened the
program letting you know that you're aperson of excellence anyway. Consequently, after
decades of a radical walk in Christ, in Christ and personal passion, despite

(32:10):
ministerial competency, theological training, beingpsych certified, and pastoral experience. God
led me into this safe haven.God led me into a safe haven and

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inner chamber, and proceeded to takeme through an intense scrutiny of my being
and personhood in the light of Hisword, his will, his purpose,

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internally, externally, eternally. TheChamber poems are my chronicling of the fathers
wooing me to an inner chamber andwhat happened there. In fierce, unrelenting

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therapy, with veracious truth, withrigorous grace, he adjusted the core of
my being. He made me toknow him better than I know myself.
I used to pray that. Iremember before that I used to pray,

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God, I want to know youbetter than I know myself. He brought
me to the chamber and into theabyss of self, not alone, but
led by my Savior, who himselfwent into the bowels of hell and came

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up with the keys and the captives. Huh. He led me into the
sewage, where self righteousness and religiosityis spawned, to refuse, from which
tradition is erected and made law,where precepts are petrified. I think I

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wrote putrefied in this poem, whereprecept is putrified with decomposed custom, and
truth confused and molded with molded mandates, and walls are made of laws intended
to bring us to oneness upon theone who made us. This isn't double

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talk. This is he took meinto the chamber and had me understanding anyway
the rest of the poem. Thechamber poems are my chronicling of going into
the tender innermost part, innermost andhidden part where breeches are stopped, where
he redirected my waters and sealed myfountain, where he established prudence and counsel

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to my soul, instructed me inthe way of understanding, and made me
to know him in wisdom, wherebreadth is word and is alive. And
that to be sure, because thischamber was not as a novius, and

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it wasn't something I made up,because I didn't know that I kept myself
in a cave trying to keep myselfprotected. All that I explained earlier,
the excuses, excuses. Yah,He took me into a chamber and then
let me know that that cave thatI'd made wasn't him anyway, Isaiah forty

(36:15):
eight I wrote the scripture here Imight go to it. Behold, I
have refined THEE. This is Isaiahforty eight. Ten. Behold, look
pay attention to that. Most ofus when the scripture says behold, we
don't even behold, because that wordbehold is there to pay attention. Map

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that out, look at it,stare at it, think on it,
meditate on it. We just goto. I have refined THEE, but
not with silver. When God saysbehold, he's talking about make that something
you concentrate on. Mark that off, make that something that you go to
and pay attention to. And inthis context of forty eight ten, behold,

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I have refined THEE, but notwith silver. I have chosen THEE
in the furnace of affliction. I'lltell you now when he gave me that
back then, I didn't like itbecause I thought affliction like job's comforters.

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I thought affliction was only for peoplethat were doing wrong and wrong. And
while I recognized that you know allof sin and comes short to the glory
of God, I wasn't looking tolive a life of affliction. Thus,
the Chamber of Poems so Psalm fiftysix thirteen. For thou hast delivered pardon

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me, I had the hiccups,and I didn't bring water. For thou
hast delivered my soul from death.And by the way, that that's death
in all aspects, all avenues,not just graveyard death. The way we
say, for thou hast delivered mysoul from death, wilt thou not deliver

(38:19):
my feet from falling? That Imay walk before God in the light of
the living Yeah, Psalm fifty sixthirteen. And with that I wrote,
I must know you. I mustknow you. Let me look at the

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time. Yeah, that poem.I must know you. I must know
you, Father better than I do. I must know you, Father in
a way that is true, truein my spirit, true in my soul,
true in a way that consumes all. I must know you. I

(39:07):
must know you, Lord more deeplythan now. I must know you Lord
more fully how I must know youto share you with the lost and dying,
the lame and the blind, towin you while there's still time.

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I must know you. I mustknow you, Holy Spirit, more intimately
than this. I must know you, Holy Spirit, know your lead,
your will when to move or tobe still in a way that I cannot

(39:50):
miss, nor would resist nor grieveyour grace with my carnal ways. I
must know you. Oh and Iwrote that, and I'm telling you that
I was a soul winner. That'sthe way you were, Deliverance. You
know that Seventeenth Street Saints. Youwere always about winning Christ before it got

(40:15):
to be it was Deliverance evangelistic church. We evangelized. And I remember I
lived in westok Lane, which wasa nice neighborhood at the time, but
I had to catch the Sea trolleyand go downtown and get the subway to
Broaden Erie and then walk two blocksone way, walk a few blocks another

(40:36):
way, and the whole time I'mwitnessing to every single body. I didn't
know it that way. I didn'tunderstand I didn't understand church rules and church
this in church that. However,I wanted to share with everybody how Jesus
changed me and how he made hislove so real to me. So anybody,
if I caught you even looking inmy direction, I'm going to share

(40:59):
with you Jesus Christ who loves you, not just that he loved me,
And so as I learned in myfirst few weeks at Deliverance, how to
witness. I was witnessing all thetime, going to the two blocks up
to the to catch the trolley.While I'm at the trolley, stop anybody

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there. They're going to hear aboutJesus who saves Jesus, the son of
God, that God had die onthe cross to save you from your sins.
Oh, and then on the trolley, and then all the way on
the subway. All of that.I wasn't just asking to know how to
witness, how to evangelize. Iwas doing that all the time. What

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I wanted I was asking him isto bring people into the transformation that he
brought me into. I wanted toknow owe him to know how to do
that, to transform and cause peopleto come to him and have that transformation.

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Because I saw as we well,like I said, Deliverance trained us,
whether it was the young people orthe different teams in the church,
were all trained to evangelize Deliverance evangelisticchurch. And I wanted I would see

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how people would accept Jesus. However, I would see the different depths at
which they would and it wouldn't befully and I would see what they back
then called it backsliding that some wouldgive their lives to the Lord and then
backslide. And I wanted for whatI had read in the Pentateuke. I

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saw how that God will transform ina way that you never go back.
Now. I saw that his peopledid. However, one of the things
I saw was for not rehearsing hispromises, for not remembering what he said
and always remembering the bad things thatwent on, And like, right now

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people are going through very badly.People are going through trials even worse than
what they've gone through before. Andif you keep looking at him and thinking
on them instead of behold, beholdhis promise. I remember when I don't
want to speak of it as prejudice, but when the char charismatic renewal was

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coming along, because people didn't wantto be called Pentecostal because that was associated
with a certain ethnic group of peoplethat another ethnic group considered super religious and
super emotional. And I remember beingjust smitten with in certain churches. And

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I didn't understand denominations at the time. I hadn't gotten to First Corinthians,
where he says you're cardinal, youknow, because one wants to say I'm
of Paul, another arm of Cephisand the other arm of Apollos, and
they were very different ways of bringingpeople to Christ. They were very different
types of eloquence in the world.Well, actually Apollos was the one that

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God testifies was eloquent, but eachone was strong in their way of winning
souls to Christ. And I wouldask God, I want to be like
you, because you don't miss anybody, and you complete everybody. And when
you encounter anybody, they come toyou, and they come fully. Now,

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huh, it's almost time to it'stime to close up. I want
you to know I'm going to readyou this one poem, The Hidden Chamber.
Our father opened up a chamber Ididn't know was there. I thought
I'd given him my pain and hurt. I thought I'd cast on him all

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my care. He has anointed mewith gladness and distress and suffering. He
has ministered his peace in every boisterousstorm. And yet there was a hidden
chamber where we never met. Hehas developed in his grace to developed me

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in his grace during blessing and persecution. His shadow has been protection in many
a violence circumstance. Yet somehow thishidden chamber escaped my attention. He is
upheld by his mercy when overcome bygrief and despondency. He's overshadowed with his

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love through harsh, protracted rejection.But there was a hidden chamber unapproachable for
me. He has given great lovefor his will, his people, his
ways. He has put a songin my heart and laughter in my soul,

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but still this hidden chamber was notyielded to his grace. I don't
think I'm going to read another poem. He brought me into the chamber.
He's the one who showed me mycave and showed me my way of protecting

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myself from being hurt and dejected andrejected. I thought I'd given that all
to him, and I mean sincerely, oh my, And I was good
at winning souls. I was alsogood at hiding in my cave. And
here this is decades later, andhe wants me to share the chamber poems.

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It's a booklet, several poems inthere, and I wanted to keep
them to myself, not wanting toshare. Except for that Jesus didn't hold

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anything back. How dare I?And not only that, I want to
obey him in all things. Inthe blink of an eye, not till
not. When I understand and whenI think it's good, and when I
think it's right, and when Ithink it's safe, he keeps me safe.
He's the one who justifies me whensomeone else understands or misunderstands me or

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what I said, or my motivesor my this or my that. And
I'm gone through a lot of thatand probably still have a lot of it
going through it right now in waysthat are unbelievable, ridiculous, and yet
his way is right. His wayis truth. And one of the things

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that I love about the Lord inthe way that he deals with me.
And I haven't always recognized what Ido now, and that's that he gives
me to minister to people who gothrough through in the ways that I go
through, because we all don't gothrough the same and we all don't take

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it the same way. If Isay how something hurt me deeply, and
you say how something hurt you deeply, the hurt may be different, and
talk about it in a nice way. If I say how something tastes sweet
and wonderful, and you taste somethingand it tastes sweet and wonderful, our
tastes are different, and one ofthe things that God showed me is that

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he gives me to minister to peoplewho deal in things at the same kind
of levels and the same kind ofways, not necessarily the same things,
but in the same strength, sothat calamities are similar, challenges are similar,

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and the answers the deliverance is similar. And I love it that when
He had me come to Deliverance EvangelisticChurch at seventeenth and Venango, a church
in an area of Philadelphia, mymother disallowed, and I was still a
minor, and I knew the pentitukethat you're supposed to obey your parents.

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I knew to obey his word.To obey is better than sacrifice. His
word is not only truth, itis true.