You, My Children, are like a beautiful diadem that crowns Me. You are My crowning glory. You are the joy of Heaven and the fulfillment of My heart. Our hearts reach. Our hands reach. We are immersed in love, and so We are One.

I do not get immersed in your troubles. I am aware of them, and yet I see them for what they are, wisps of incomplete understanding. We could say that your immersion in troubles is like having joined the army. Your life is taken over. You are no longer the free agent you once were. You have joined the military. You are in it, and yet you fight what you become involved in. Oh, you would be so happy if only you weren’t in the army. If you weren’t in the army, you could keep your hair any length you wanted. You could travel when and where you wanted. And you wouldn’t have to bear arms or be hurt.

And so you wear an army beret. You follow the army, and the army follows you. You’re in the army now. You’re in a barrel of trouble now. “Help, get me out,” your heart cries.

And it seems to you that trouble never ends. Just when you think you’re about free of the army, your tour of duty is extended.

And so, life seems to be one reaction after another. You shine your shoes. You salute swiftly and professionally. You go through various tours of duty with awareness that the army has you in its thrall.

You have a mind set that you are indentured to trouble and can never really get out of it, or not for long. Not only that, you are sent to the front. You feel as though you are in debt to war, and that you are obligated to it, and so you stay in, and you wear the uniform.

The fact is that you get out of difficulty all the time. And yet you can’t get trouble off your mind and out of your heart. Trouble is constantly on your mind. You look for the next shoe to fall.

What if you could let trouble out the window? What if you were not trouble’s handmaiden? What if you were mightier than trouble? What if you didn’t call trouble trouble? What if you call trouble a complication and have a sense that you complicate it? When trouble comes, does it not also go?

You have endured trouble and you have come out of it, and, even so, your mind is troubled. Your beautiful heart is ever on the ready for trouble.

Trouble may have become an expected guest. You know trouble is coming, only you don’t know when. You can expect it at any time.

What are We to do about your relationship with trouble? In terms of the world, it doesn’t seem possible to lock it out. You could barricade yourself against what the world calls trouble, and, yet, nevertheless, it seems to find a way in.

Is there something else that we could name trouble? After all, it is not a debt. It is not an obligation, and yet it seems to get its way in.

What is not trouble for you, My beloveds? Confess, sometimes getting up in the morning is trouble for you. Cooking is trouble for you. Making a salad is trouble for you. Yet you well know that you don’t have to be indentured to it and are not always. What was a big trouble once seems like nothing to you now. What if a present trouble weren’t as big as it seems? Is it possible that what you call trouble could be named something else? Lesson isn’t such a great name either.

Mostly, trouble is a call to arms. There are different layers of troubles. One is huge, and another is just troublesome.

Is it possible that it would be helpful for you to realize that whatever trouble (that which you call trouble) comes, you will meet it, and its effect will leave and you will whistle?