When will I see You again?
When will I see You again?
When will I see You again, my Friend?
How can I come before You,
When my heart is broken in two?
How can I come before You again?
My spirit cries out night and day!
But the heavens are brass when I pray!
And the songs of Zion have all turned to dust in my mouth!
Hey-yeahhh (soulful singing groan)
Father please do not forget me,
Please see me, I’m broken and empty.
My heart has been blind and deceived by my pride.
I come to You wretched and lonely,
I’m lookin’ for life in You only,
Oh Father please gather me safe to Your side!
My soul longeth hard after You!
Let Your Loving-Kindness break through!
And the songs of Zion will all rise again in my heart!
Hey-yeahhh! (soulful triumphant sung note)
As you know if you read here regularly, I love to refer to the Holy Spirit as Mama…and back in the 1990s I started calling Her “Lady Grace”, based on the stories my baby was writing back then “Tales of the Blood King.”
I have always had a very deep interest in and affinity with Holy Spirit. As a child, I used to be scared of our orchards, because I was certain that I heard a “ghost” calling me to come out in the orchard and meet her. It frightened me because it was so unusual, not so much because I thought harm would come to me. When I tried to talk to my parents about it, they just laughed at me, and marveled at “the imagination on that kid!” Yeah, that sorta hurt…but why would they think or do otherwise? It certainly is not “normal”!
In college, thanks to my beloved Dearest Darling, I met Holy Spirit very personally face to face (in my heart of course…the literal face to face is still to come!). And since that time, She has been very present and with me…with the exception of last year in the autumn, when They strategically withdrew to break me out of dry dock, and launch me on a voyage.
This song was my attempt at conveying the beauty, the blessing, and the healing of Lady Grace’s presence. Whenever I played it, the reaction was dramatic…some people were transported into a deeper realm of devotion and union with God…and other people literally at times tried to stop me from playing it, to the point of threatening to kick me out of church if I persisted. I persisted…
Take a look for yourselves…and may you always find a door to open in your heart to Lady Grace, the most gentle and comforting and powerful of beings!!
***** ***** ***** ***** ***** Like A Rose (Come Holy Ghost)
The fragrance of Your Presence here is all I need.
You fall on me like dew on thirsty ground.
You pour out golden oil on my hungry heart,
I will drink of heaven’s love come down.
Chorus #1:
Holy Spirit come (echo). Holy Spirit come (echo)
Come and pour the Wine of Father’s love.
Holy Spirit come (echo). Holy Spirit come (echo),
Come and fill our hearts with Love again.
The fire of Your Presence here is like a Rose,
You blossom in the dark night of my soul.
Your steadfast love surrounds me and You melt the snows,
And I am set aflame by First Love’s coal.
Chorus #2:
Holy Spirit Fall! (echo) Holy Spirit Fall! (echo)
Fall like Holy Fire from Father’s Throne.
Holy Spirit Fall! (echo) Holy Spirit Fall! (echo)
Come and set our hearts on fire again.
Found this in the stuff from the past I am going thru…it is a song, and seems appropriate to this lil stretch I am in when all tastes flat, and my heart hangs heavy in my throat and I want to cry all the time…
Burning Love
Even if the fig tree fail to blossom, and the fruit not come forth from the branch,
Even though the yield of the olive should fail, and the fields bring forth no food.
Though the flock should be cut off from the fold, and there be no cattle in the stalls,
Yet I exult in the Lord my God. Still I will boast in the Lord.
The Lord God is my strength, I rejoice in His salvation,
Even so I sing of His great Love.
He will make me stand, and I will walk on His High Places,
He surrounds me with His Burning Love…His Burning Love.
All of you whose hearts are barren, lift ye up your eyes unto your King,
And you who weep with broken spirits, lift ye up your hands unto your King.
For He has pruned you with His favor, and He has purified you with His Love,
Cast away all your filthy rags! Run to Him and find your life in Him!
Worship Him in Broken Beauty, Crown Him with your tears,
Lay your contrite spirits on His altar.
Let His fire consume your song, sweet aroma to Him,
Give Him everything you have, you are His Bride…you are His Bride.
There is a tremendous subtext in Song of Solomon, or Song of Songs as some call it. Like so many other parts of scripture,
this book is like a rose, and peels back layers of meaning and potentiality as you dig deeper into it.
One level that it has always intrigued me on was the allegorical level,
where it is speaking with poetry and metaphor to talk about a rich and fruitful inner life of devotion.
In relationship with Jesus, I have always been feminine, and thus the parts about Him being the Bridegroom, and me the Bride made sense to me.
Language that could be interpreted as sexual in nature is very effective to describe
the kind of connection that I have been so blest to receive from Him.
This song, taken from the Song of Songs, was written at a peak, devotional time.
I will lay down in my Lover’s arms. I will lay down and open up my soul.
Draw me so close to Your heart, let me know Your sweet caresses,
My spirit yearns for You…and my heart burns for You…
I am lovesick with desire! Your kisses fill me with Your fire,
the fires of love for the Lover of my soul.
Chorus:
Draw me after You! Let me run with You!
Jesus, kiss me with the kisses of Your mouth.
I will go with You! Giving all to You!
You are altogether lovely, my God.
I will say yes when He comes for me. I will say yes, when He cries “Open for Me!”
Let us go out in the night to the mountains of myrrh,
I give my life to You, Lord I will die for You.
Jesus breathe upon my garden, so that my heart will never harden,
may the fruit please the Lover of my soul.
This song is revealing now…I see the cycle, as I would swing down into the trough and the horror of dysphoria would rage in me like a flood. And then the manifestations of Their comfort, Their mercy, and the wholeness that They would bestow, and my heart would be restored.
In the trough, I wrote songs of repentance and cries for mercy…I thought that I was displeasing Them, or failing Them, or not numbering my days wisely. While that likely happened some, it is far more the case that I was dis-integrating and desperate. And on the peak, I was carried by Them, as They healed me and got me ready for the next battle, the next workout and time of war… so I wrote songs of devotion, celebration, exuberance…and lots of songs about the Bride and Bridegroom (a topic I was obsessed with! More on that later).
This is a trough song.
(Oh…and PS: the wording is almost straight from the OT, thus the words about His anger, wrath, and the “Thou”s and “Thee”s!)
From everlasting to everlasting, Thou art God.
Days pass like flowers fading in darkness but You remain.
Your Holiness unchanging, Your purging fire consuming all our ways,
because our fading flowers are countless wasted hours cast away.
Chorus:
We’ve been consumed by Thine anger!
We’ve been dismayed by Thy wrath!
Our secret sin is revealed in Thy Presence,
we have worshipped the works of our hands!
Oh Lord, we cry out to You for forgiveness!
Oh Lord, we cry out to You for Your grace.
Oh Lord, we ask that You would show us Your mercy!
Return to us, as we return to You.
Teach us to number each day You give us to worship Thee,
That we can give You hearts full of wisdom, and Your ways.
Restore us in the morning and let Your Loving-Kindness be our bread!
Let mercy fall upon us like dew from heaven’s storehouse…make us glad!
This song is from my life book, and specifically my life passage: Philippians 3:8-12 (do you have a life book and/or passage? Something to think on). I remember that the nights were getting worse…nearly unbearable, and my poor beloved who suffered beside me, holding me as I shook and trembled and cried and suffered in the dark.
I remember getting up around 2 AM one morning just a few weeks after the first of the year. The thought of enduring another year towered over me like King Kong over Faye Wray! Suicide was not an option, as it is so unfair to the ones left behind, and it is the ultimate self-oriented act…but going on was not an option either.
I longed to just simply “never-have-been”…because it was as if I wasn’t there anyway, and yet horribly and terribly aware and having being…rough.
I got out my guitar, and began to strum softly in my favorite chords, and just hum…and a lil melody bubbled up inside, and the chord changes manifested themselves to me, and then I spontaneously started singing these words…but I actually believe that Lady Grace sang them for me, for I was without mouth, without tongue, and screaming…
It got me thru. They are enough…always, always enough.
(I am crying as I recall, in total and complete gratefulness)
When my life is shaken in the storm,
You are there…and You draw me near You.
In Your Arms my heart is made secure,
as You kiss my tears and call me Your own.
Chorus:
I want to know You, I want to know You!
Deep in my heart, Lord…I want to know You!
I want to know You, I want to know You!
More than I have known you Lord…I want to know You.
When the dark night presses in on me,
You are there, You’re shining so brightly.
Then Your sweet love brings the dawn again,
and my heart is filled with only one cry…
Chorus
So I come and kneel at Calvary.
You are there, and You draw me near You.
Then Your Blood, Your River washes me,
Jesus, I surrender my life to You
Another devotional chorus from years ago…as I read them now I understand so much better that dark desperate despair that I had to battle constantly…and I am also more impressed than ever by the mercies and faithfulness of our God! Thank You, again and again and again!!! 🙂
Hear, Oh Lord and answer me! For I am poor and needy.
Guard my life oh so close to Thee, for I am devoted to You.
Chorus:
You are my God (3x)
Save Your servant who trusts in You! Let me drink deep of Your Mercy.
I cry out to You all night long! Oh Father I must have You!
One thing I used to love to do is take a passage of scripture that got into my heart and took up haunting residence there, and turn it into a song. Often times, I tried to make these songs something that most people found current to their situation, or the situation of the body of believers at that time.
There is a creative art to first hearing the melody, and then to making words in English that fit the meaning of the passage with integrity.
Often, the end result was that there would be free singing at the end, and it was remarkable how often coherent, meaningful and very touching moments occurred with this, as the one with the impromptu song would sing, and the group would then echo call and response style.
This is one of those songs, taken from a highly prophetic and symbolic book, the book of Joel, and it is chapter 2:1-12)
Even now return to the Lord with weeping,
and rend your hearts and not your garments.
Come and sanctify the congregation,
and assemble the elders and gather the children
and the nursing babes…
and cry out to Him…
Let the Bridegroom rise from His holy mountain
Let the bride arise from her bridal chamber
Let the priests who pour out their lives before Him
Weep between the porch and the altar, crying,
“Spare Thy people Lord…
Show us mercy Lord…”
Bridge: Oh God of mercy please hear our cry!
Do not forget our desperation!
Why should the nations mock “Where is your god?”
Oh Jesus, we cry out to You
Chorus: Between the porch and the altar,
We consecrate our hearts!
Between the porch and the altar,
Pour Your love over us in the Beauties of Holiness!
Pour Your love over us in the Beauties of Holiness!
Lord, we come before You by Your LovingKindness,
And we seek You boldly in abundant Grace.
May Your Blood Atonement make us clean and holy,
For we long to see You face to Face
We are hungry Lord…
For our husband Lord…
And the King will sing to His chosen people
“I will send you grain, and new wine and oil.
I will pour My Spirit out in fullness,
And remove the stigma from My Bride
(Back in 1995, I was a full time worship leader for the body of believers that I was attending…the place where I taught, led, and tried best I could to serve. This is a chorus I wrote in those days, to try to indicate a total resolve to follow Jesus where He led, regardless of the cost or place.
Little did I know that the journey would lead here!! Honestly, back then if someone had told me the road would lead to a discovery that I was a transgender person, I would have thought they were crazy! See, I was like most people…I thought that being transgender meant being sexually interested in dressing as a woman and having homosexual activity with another man.
I was totally ignorant, but in my own “righteousness” and view of anyone different, I automatically assumed that A: they were “weird” and B: they were sinful. Oh, and of course I “loved” them…Hah!
SO much has changed, and Jesus and Grace did indeed take me up on my bold words. I never knew how much pain and wrenching would be involved in such a revelation as They brought…and I also could not even imagine the liberty and healing that has resulted.
The good fruits in me are wonderful, and they in essence build my trust, to issue another bold proclamation to surrender even more…and that is scary, because the last one was so difficult, that the thought of something else like that makes me quail!
But here is the truth: I would rather die running towards Them instead of running away.
I hope that the next phase involves opportunities to tell people about the real People I know…the real Father and Jesus and Mama…the tender and loving and humorous and creative and accepting and teaching and transforming Beings that They have been for me.
Constance…please, if you are not used to reading about God, or talking about who they are, or if you have past wounds, bad experiences or pollutions from people who took Their Name in vain, give what I have to say about Them a chance.
I assure you: if They accept the likes of me, they will accept anybody!!)
There’s a cry in my spirit, an unquenchable flame.
I’ve been captured by Jesus, and I will never be the same!
I’ve been branded forever. I’ve been cut to the core.
By the Lion of Judah, shaken by His Mighty Roar!
So I will spend every moment, and I will waste all my wealth,
Jesus, come break me open, and pour me out for Yourself.
For I have burned all my bridges. I’m past the point of no return…
Jesus, let me be, yielded totally, and wasted for You.
Descant: I want to be wasted for you Lord (repeat)
Was walkin down an alleyway and darkness gathered round,
I spied a slicked down rebel and he looked me up and down.
He had the cut of one who’d slashed all ties with the old ways,
He looked at me like a rattlesnake appraising new found prey.
Suddenly he waved at me with something cold and black!
I turned around and I was face to face with a modern maniac!
His pistol whispered in my ear of burning funeral pyres,
And then he pulled the trigger! But the weapon didn’t fire!
Chorus: I’m standin on the city wall and I see war at hand
It won’t be some forsaken spot, it’s here in our homeland.
I blow the trumpet’s warning loud, this moment you must seize!
Cus violence is like VD it’s a sociable disease!
The man, he stepped back with a laugh that didn’t reach his eyes.
He said he was just practicing for the coming dark’s demise.
He said “This life is war, and you will learn that war is Hell.”
To hear him talk you’d never guess that we was all livin so well.
“World War 2 has never stopped!” he cried in desperation.
“This so called peace you hide behind has just been intermission!” He said
“Shoot or be shot! Survival of the fittest, you ain’t got a choice!”
I might be wrong, but I think there was panic in his voice.
Chorus:
Then the man he walked away and left me on that street,
a vicarious participant in his desperate retreat.
I put aside all lesser things to face the alley’s mouth.
Somehow I knew it’d do no good to migrate further south.
Seven days went by before I saw that man again.
This time he was the newspaper’s hot front page specimen.
The headlines screamed into my eyes “MAN MURDERS SOCIALITE”
Then the column droned out horrors of that fateful night.
With loaded gun he’d followed a girl home from a restaurant.
Then he shoved her to the ground, his face twisted and gaunt!
He shot her in the back one time, she gave a piercing cry,
She sat up gasping–then she fell–in pain she bled and died!
I testified at the man’s trial to a room of fearful folk
I said “His act was one of hate–it’s time that you awoke!
And looked around, your affluence is but a dinosaur
Cus many here among us seem to think that life is war!”
Chorus: And I’m standin on the city wall and I see war around me!
It ain’t in some forsaken spot, it’s here in my own family!
Battle lines are being drawn, you must prepare to fight,
For mercy, justice, love and truth…….
……or we’ll just fade into the night…….
(painting by Kristen Beck: please support her however you can!)
I was rambling thru the mall on the move to avoid them storefront snares.
Watchin people cruisin by me wearin those “as advertised” hypnotic stares.
Some of them looked like machines, and some of them were worn out by their Calvin Klein jeans
But me I just kept runnin from that sugar coated FM radio blair.
I fought thru hordes of folk who’d tear the shirt off your back over in Sears.
A bunch of bargain basement bounty hunters gibbering like a flock of auctioneers.
I saw a girl who looked like she was panicking, then I discovered that she was just a manikin!
A plastic Venus Fly Trap catchin human flies to feed her profiteers!
Chorus: They were the victims of a Grand Mall Seizure!
Epileptic captives of a false scheme of leisure!
If you worship them golden gods of pleasure,
you gotta swallow your tongue and start doin’
The Grand Mall Seizure!
See that red faced man a-hustlin by moppin his forehead with his handkerchief?
He don’t know where he’s goin he’s just like a lemming leapin offa cliff!
That woman eatin chocolate Lady Fingers? She has forgotten she has value, not a memory lingers,
Of a time when humankind was more than micro-chip computer hieroglyph!
Can’t you see that you been mauled by them big boys up on Madison Avenue!!??
They pulled them alligator t-shirts over your eyes with their magical television voodoo.
You swallowed their bait hook line and sinker, and you been duped cus you refuse to BE A THINKER!
And you ain’t really in a mall at all, you’re in Consumer City Zoo!! And you’re the victim of a
When the dark night surrounds me, and I can’t find my way thru
Across the breakers like a beacon–You call my name and bring me back to You.
In the raging storm You calm me, with a pure love like I never knew,
Like a tree, You give me shelter, You comfort me and bring me back to You
Chorus Back to Your Love, Back to Your Light
Back to Your arms, You make it all right!
Back in Your Love, Back in Your Light,
Back in Your arms, You make it all right
when I come back to you.
In the heart ache, in the sorrow, it seems like there ain’t nothin true,
And I can’t even face tomorrow, but there ain’t nothin else to do.
That’s when Your sweet sweet love comes tumbling down, tumbling down,
to resurrect me from the tomb
You light the flames of Holy Passion, and then You draw me ever back to You. (Chorus)
(written while studying the parable of the prodigal son…we are all that prodigal, profligately wasteful. But the worst thing is that some end up being the older brother…prideful and haughty and stingy with love and grace and forgiveness.
And who would I aspire to be like? The one heart here that is tender and kind and generous.)
I’ve been on the road such a dusty long time,
felt the heat of the sun fill my head with cold chimes.
And freedom ain’t all that its’s cracked up to be,
cuz Your tough tender heart’s far away, far from me.
And I’m longing to see You, and look in Your face,
and listen to Your laughter filling my lonely place.
But I’m on my own now, so I howl at the moon,
and remember when You told me ’bout the dish and the spoon.
I’ve made lotsa money, but not many friends.
It’s a hard thing to figure–where one starts and one ends.
The wind blows so lonesome thru a heart I thought free,
and it rattles the memories of You loving me.
So I cling to the hope of Your welcome to me,
and I’d rather be Your slave than be lost but free!
So Master…no…Father…I surrender to You,
and I’m coming back home, I surrender to you.
(This is a simple chorus, a song of devotion. I wrote this for our home group, and we would sing it as I strummed the guitar and led the chorus. I can’t play any longer, as the arthritis plays hell in my hands…but when I found this, jotted down on the back of an old church bulletin, it was indeed a pearl saved by Mama, and given back to me.
The interesting task of processing these all now, looking back with eyes that know my tender woman’s soul trapped inside this testosterone ravaged body, well, so far it has had the effect of helping me to embrace that I was not insane then, however crazy I felt.
I freely admit that it was lil songs like this that were all that kept me going.)
Set me like a seal on Your heart. Wear me like a ring on Your finger.
Give to me Your love that is stronger than death,
and set me like a seal upon Your heart. (Chorus)
Carve Your Name into my heart. Write upon my life with Your finger.
Hold me to the cross my love, and pierce my ear forever,
and carve Your Name into my heart. (Chorus)
Let me know the beating of Your heart. I will give my life for Your pleasure.
There is nothing in this world that I desire more,
than just to know the beating of Your heart. (Chorus)
Chorus For I love you, I love you!
With all my heart, with all my heart,
Yes I love you, I love you,my Beloved, I love you
Well I see that you been walkin cuz that Cadillac broke down
But the desert won’t surrender for a dollar or a crown,
And the crowd is back the road a-piece just a-waitin for a ride, while you are
Fixing your eyes on the sky
lookin for that fiery chariot ride
to come and take you sailin’ on the wings of His desire.
The glitter and the grime have blurred the boundaries of truth
In that ghost town full of souls who search for fountains full of youth,
And the flashback memories of the branding iron’s searing sneer
Haunt your spirit like a curse
from a Pharisee’s gold-lined purse, and your heart is
Longing for the wings of His desire.
Hey Friend! Don’t you realise that He held you up to them, like a mirror!
Yeah, it’s you they stoned but it’s them they hate!
The stench of their hypocrisy just chokes their life away…
Hey Friend! Don’t you realise that He holds you in His Arms, you are His child!
Yeah it’s you that He was crucified for and ever does the sweet perfume
of His love fill the air you breathe…
So remember this sage fool’s advice as your pilgrimage unfolds
Let down your hair, Rapunzel! Cast away that pot of fool’s gold!
For angels cannot suffer, but they can’t taste of love’s sweet wine, and it is
Better that you have your being, spun out like a precious tapestry
Suspended on the wings of His desire.
Hey Friend! Lift up your eyes again and let the wind blow back your hair
Take courage once again for the stones they throw in a twinkling will
become the bricks of His steadfast love for you…
And the songs of praise shall rise again like a golden phoenix from the flame
And the prophet’s mantle will again rest on your shoulders like His Name
And it is better that you have your being, sung like a precious melody
And it is better that you have your being, sung like a precious melody
And sheltered by the wings of His desire.
Constance…when I hear my blessed Mama living in the music of Her children as they sing, I burst into tears…literally every time. When Precious Jesus is inhabiting the praise of His peoples, I cannot help the tears of joy that simply jump out of my heart and stream tangible baptisms of gratitude, and flowing fountains of inexpressible and unutterable thankfulness that The Lord has had mercy on me, this broken and alienated stranger in a strange land.
Even as a small child, this happened to me…and then I was ashamed, because boys don’t cry. I always cried!!
Oh, it just feels sooo good to let my heart overflow and offer Him my own soul’s inner waters out from my eyes.
It doesn’t happen to me everytime I hear a worship song, or every time I hear a hymn, or sing even…but there are those times…if you were lucky enough to be in a church that wasn’t so freaking oppressive that Mama simply looked on from a distance, silently, Her incredible generous and compassionate essence quenched by the soul-stealing stench of pride and haughtiness…then you know that moment I am talking about. Something just…changes! The ceilings are gone…the floors are gone…horizons expand, and suddenly you know…you. know. That God is alive, and love. That you are alive and loved.
As a small child, as a teen, and as a young adult, these times would happen, and I would hide myself away in Them, snuggled down my tearful face buried deep in Their side, and I would breathe my thankful utterances that in this awful and desolate land that I was sentenced to dwell in until I died, through no request or doing of my own was I born and then born a prisoner…I would tell them…Oh Lovely Lovely Shepherd (for that is who I talked to then, to Jesus the Good Shepherd who left the 99 and came to get me…Jesus the compassionate who had mercy on the prostitute caught in the act of adultery…Jesus the Healer who felt the touch of faith’s heart at the hem of His garment in the throng of thousands of grabby greedy desperate hands)…Oh Wondrous Shepherd of my soul…if I can have my sentence of life in prison punctuated and pierced by these moments of furlough and reprieve, however brief…then I will follow You always. I promise and do so choose forever, come what may.
And then I would often weep all night long…literally…draining out the sorrow, the self-loathing and the shame and despite for my awful awful self…I would pour out my thankfulness that even to a wretch like me They would draw nigh and commune with me…even humble Themselves to TOUCH me!
And They were faithful to be there…
And They were faithful to continually work over me, labor over me, in the womb of my imprisonment and dysphoria to ready me for birth…and when labor began They went silent, for the pangs and contractions had to be strong, had to be ultimate, had to take me past my limits. Well, they did that, and I came home finally, came out finally to live and be born…
and the moments resumed, commenced once again.
Now? Oh. My. God. Mama took me under Her wing, and has been teaching me, Her tongue a good Theme.
So I would ask you to give the vid a shot, for at minimum you can hear the soundtrack that played while I bawled in utter thankfulness and total gratitude for life, for Life.
And at the maximum? Have some tissues on the by!
Love and Grace be unto you in the richest most lavish extreme…
Brrr…I am a lil skert, starting this blog. It is the very first baby step towards being out as who I really am, the me that I was born to…I am frightened, and yet so excited all at once. I love this picture, because it shows how I have always been…gazing out, yearning, standing off to the side, there but not there…and I like that there are 3 women down in the shelter. They represent my core support…bless you ladies who love me with your hearts!
And I love that we are all surfers in this pic…waves are toys and funland rides to surfers, skimming along on stormy waters and dancing.
I have no idea where I will be in 3 months, in a year. I have no idea who will be in my life besides the ones who are with me, and who will be out of my life.
May God give me grace to welcome all in, and never shut any out, and then I can have peace, knowing that I have lived in integrity and shalom, and that I am literally not responsible for the choices of others.
Charissa's Grace Notes 
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