May I give you my own analogy of something I read years ago, a process that helped me then, and helps me still, in my examination of inner strength and spiritual growth. The analogy is of a soul--a human soul, with all of its splendor--being placed in a beautifully carved but very tightly locked box. This box is then placed and locked inside another, larger one, and so on until five beautifully carved but very securely locked boxes await the woman who is skillful and wise enough to open them. Success will reveal to her the beauty and divinity of her own soul, her gifts and her grace as a daughter of God.
Prayer is the key to the first box. We kneel to ask help for the tasks and then arise to find that quite miraculously the first lock is now already open. Our excitement upon gaining entrance to a new dimension of our divinity leads us readily to the next box. But here our prayers alone do not seem to be sufficient. We turn to the scriptures for God's teachings about our soul. And we find that the second box now yields its own mysteries and rewards to the probing key of revelation.
But with the beginning of such success in emancipating the soul, Lucifer becomes more anxious, especially as we approach box number three. He knows that to truly find ourselves we must lose ourselves, so he begins to block our increased efforts to love--to love God, our neighbor, and ourselves. True charity takes us into the beauty of box number three.
Real growth and genuine insight are coming now, but the lid to box number four seems nearly impossible to penetrate, for we are climbing, too, in this story, and the way inward is also the way upward. Unfortunately, the faint-hearted and fearful often turn back here--the going seems too difficult, the lock too secure. This is a time for self-evaluation. To see ourselves as we really are often brings pain; but true humility, which comes from that process, is a godly virtue. We must be patient with ourselves as we overcome weaknesses and remember to rejoice over all that is good in us. This will strengthen the inner woman and leave her less dependent on outward acclaim. When the soul reaches the stage that it pays less attention to praise, it then cares very little when the public disapproves. These feelings of strength and the quiet triumph of faith carry us into an even brighter sphere. This fourth box, unlike the others, bursts open like a flower blooms, and the earth is reborn.
The opening of the fifth and final box can only be portrayed symbolically, and perhaps the temple is the best symbol of all. There, in a setting not of this world, where fashions and position and professions go unrecognized, we have our chance to meet God face-to-face. For those who, like the brother of Jared, have the courage and faith to break through the veil into that sacred center of existence, we will find the brightness of the final box brighter than the noonday sun. There we will find peace and serenity and a stillness that will anchor our soul forever, for there we will find God.
Wholeness. Holiness. That is what it says over the entrance to the fifth box. Holiness to the Lord. "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God?" (1 Corinthians 3:16). I testify that you are holy, that just by being born, divinity is abiding within you, waiting to be uncovered--to be reborn. God bless you in your search for the sacred center of your soul, I pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.Source: Patricia T. Holland, "The Soul's Center"
