A Tribute To Lilly...

I stood across the room, quietly taking in the scene. Anyone seeing me would think that I looked serenely beautiful in my lovely, gown, with my exquisite necklace hanging “just so”…  ‘Looking fabulous as usual’ Nene trilled as she walked by when her usual laissez-faire attitude. I just had to laugh, because there was no one just quite like Nene… Usually we would’ve started doing the rounds of the room together, but today my heart was heavy even as I laughed, successfully projecting my façade of utter peace and contentment, the façade that no matter what anyone thought, everything was “all right” in my world.


But not everything was all right in my world… This was supposed to have been me! This was supposed to have been my life, but it was snatched away from me!!! I turned away so that no one would see the ugliness pouring out from my heart, marring my beautiful visage… Hello darling another one chirped as she walked by ... My ever-loyal “boyfriend” came over and wrapped his strong arms around my shoulders, which normally would have made me feel much more secure, but today it had absolutely no effect whatsoever.


Dear God!!!, But I did everything right! I did what I was supposed to do!! I was who I was supposed to be!!! I prayed, I believed… Why did things turned out the way they did! Why is he the one who seems to have everything together, and I the one who seemingly has nothing to speak of, the one who has nothing to put together to send to my relatives in a greeting card to make them go awww…


'Oh my God he's coming over!' ... I tried valiantly to keep things together, but I felt myself losing the battle. As I  turned around to walk out of the banquet hall, for fear of breaking down completely, and spoiling my great moment, (with my name just about to be announced as the major award recipient for the evening), I heard HIS voice speak to me in a way that stopped me in my tracks…


Slowly I turned around, my tears quickly drying up, my shoulders squaring, and I stood taller… All because of the words He'd just whispered in my ear. This was it! This was the validation I’d been waiting for - This was what made everything clear to me … I am loved!


'Hello! It's been a while...'


It didn't matter anymore that he was married! It didn't matter anymore that he had his brood of children, and it didn't matter anymore and that I was the one who was right, and he was the one who had been wrong. Everything was OK now… everything was finally the way it should be …


Later that night lying in my comfortable bed, I basked in the light of His love, reminiscing on the beauty of the evening and  honor that had been bestowed upon me …. I was finally content. My world was finally right side up! I turned over, my eyes catching on the twinkle of my new engagement ring sparkling in the twilight… The one that almost never was because of how high of a fortress I had built around my heart… The wall that came crashing down today… I sighed and closed my eyes …. And the last words I heard just before I drifted off to sleep, were the words that He had spoken into my ear earlier that evening, the words that had made all the difference, and totally healed my bruised and battered soul … ‘My child do you for one moment imagine that I love him more than I love you? That I would favor him over you? Rest in my love… I LOVE YOU, and I have a plan for you that will very soon be revealed to you… rest in my love’


Yes, with those words everything melted away - The hurt, the anger, the bitterness, the feeling of being the one left out in the cold… I laughed! Oh YES! It had surely been revealed .. I reached over picked up my ring and slid it onto my finger…


The lullaby that rocked me to sleep that night was the old chorus: ‘Yes Jesus loves me, yes Jesus loves me, yes Jesus loves me for the Bible tells me so … I rested.

© OluPero Mettabel, November 24, 2012


Much love from "Me" to you,
OluPero Mettabel

Our “Three” with the “Fourth”; The “Fourth” with our “Three”

Can you see them?
There! Right in the midst of the flames.
Cast in by men who never lived to tell the tale,
Burnt to ashes even as they rained curses
Damning the condemned.
Even as they, the not condemned, were damned.
Their master they had a must to obey
This command they could not deny:

The three displaced in body, not in soul,
The names conferred – Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego
In aim to basterdize, demean, destroy.
Total annihilation of every vestige of faith,
Every remnant of hope,
But Hananiah, Mishael, Azariah, stood strong,
Together the three as one,
Refusing to bow.

Securely bound, summarily shackled,
No means of escape (or so was thought).
Sundry eyes fixed on the gruesome
Pathos, tragedy and desolation,
Surely brought on by the very obedience
That compelled their souls.
The ones who succumbed standing by
By horror transfixed,
But still THEY refused to bow.

Freedom had Jehovah promised,
Heart, soul, body and mind.
Reverse divinity, through heavenly trinity
Of the tribe of Judah,
Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah - The three
Roaring Lion of the tribe of Judah arising,
Father, Spirit, The Son in the "Fourth"
The Divine in liberty, with flesh in captivity
Liberated from the scourge of fire in Serenity

Can you see them shackles broken!
Now they walk free!
In the midst of the fire,
In mystical conversation;
Holy communion, conferred through covenant.
Chaldean circumcision their hearts had rejected
Through which carnal satisfaction,
Would have bound the soul in captivity.
But by circumcision of fleshly hearts their spirits freed,
Breaking their bonds, rejecting passivity.


In the carnal fire, present HE is
So even as set to be consumed,
We are not ignited
By HIS Spirit’s fire lifted we are
Ignited with passion, but certainly not consumed!
The ONE corporeally with the three
In the physical fire,
The three intangibly with The “Three in One”
Through Spiritual fire.
Our “three” with the “Fourth”,
The “Fourth” with our “three”.


When all else have become ashes,
To His own He gives beauty.
And where bodies would have laid anointed with oil for burial,
The cruz of oil flows continually to sustain LIFE!
And instead of emptiness filling dried skeleton and skull
Fullness of the Godhead bodily dwells in living souls!
That the fire from without does not devour,
As the fire from within, baptizes to empower;
As the fourth walks freely with the three,
And the three are set free in the fourth.


Now The Lord is that Spirit,
And where HE is, there is liberty.
That we, when bound by limitation, turn to The Lord,
The veil between time and eternity is taken away
So that we who were bound by time and physicality,
In the fire without
Are liberated into the glory
“Outside of time”,
By the fire within,
LIFE UNTO LIFE  eternal!



 *** Etymology of the names:

• Hananiah means "God who is gracious" – God’s grace - CHRIST
• Misha'el means "Who is like God?”, - GOD THE FATHER

• Azariah means "God has helped" – God’s help – THE SPIRIT

• Shadrach possibly is derived from Shudur Aku "Command of the moon god" – Contrast COMMAND to GRACE

• Meshach is probably a variation of Mi•sha•aku, meaning "Who is what Aku is?", and may have been an alteration of his Hebrew name Mishael – Contrast IDOL to LIVING GOD!

• Abednego is either a corrupted or deliberate use of Abednebo, "servant of Nebo/Nabu," or Abednergo, a variation of Abednergal, "servant of the god Nergal – Contrast SERVANT to HELPER

THIS IS WHAT THE “THREE”(Father, Son and Holy Ghost) IN THE FOURTH MAN HAS BROUGHT: BY THE “FOURTH”(Jesus) in our “THREE” - Body: Liberated by walking with the “Fourth man”,  Mind: Set free by talking with the “Fourth man”, and Spirit: Ignited but not consumed by the fire of “Fourth man” – Halleluyah for Pentecoste!
FOR THIS WE ARE THANKFUL AS WE CELEBRATE THANKSGIVING!

Peace and much love,
From “Me” to you.


© OluPero Mettabel, November 22, 2012.