You are the child you give birth to, you understand. What is your whole life but your birthing? You create your own debut.

When a baby is born, everyone coos and wonders what the boy or girl will grow up to be. How will this baby turn out?

You, beloveds, are your own destiny. You create yourself along the way. You have choices, and you make them, and so you create yourself, this evidence of yourself. You are not choiceless.

Certainly, you may consider yourself a victim of circumstance. Circumstances may have been difficult, yet you are at your own helm.

You may feel that, as a child, you really had no say. What say you now? You can be what you want to be.

You may not have the career you would really like or the marriage or the children or no children or money or no money that you would like. Regardless, you can be what you want to be. I am not talking about the dressings of the world. I am talking about you. The person you are is not dependent upon riches, or appearance or anything but you. How you speculate in the world is your choice. How you serve the world is your choice. You can lie down, or you can get up. You can be a thief or a beggar. These are labels. A label attached to you is not you, nor is a label the making or unmaking of you. The surface of life is only the surface. You are far more than the surface.

Don’t let anyone tell you what you are.

The truth of the matter is that you are My child. I sent you forth -- and you agreed -- into this big world that is not really so big after all. The world and how it affects you seems enormous. It seems that life befalls you. You are sitting somewhere or standing somewhere, and you may feel that life lashes you back and forth. Even if that appears to be true, even if the world agrees with you and says you have been mistreated, that is beside the point. The point is: How do you treat yourself? How do you regard yourself? What picture of yourself do you draw? Who are you, anyway?

Are you what you are labeled? Are you what you see in the mirror, or are you truly My Child? Yes, you are. In that case, be as you choose.

No matter, you are affecting the world and beyond. Affect it as you would like to. You are no longer a babe in arms. You are a Being, and now you can treat the world differently. You can look at the world differently. You can write your own story. You do write your own story.

You are a sailor on the seas of life. You may swab the deck. You may be the cabin boy. You may be the Captain. Yet none of these titles is who you are. You and I know Who you are. You and I know what you can be. What you can be is not dependent upon your title in life. It is not dependent upon how others see you. It is dependent wholly upon you, not how you’re perceived but how on you perceive.

You may be the beggar who knocks on a door. You may be Christ in the dress of a beggar who knocks on a door. You may have fooled yourself, but you don’t fool Me. I know Who you really are.

What keeps you from knowing the Truth of yourself? What? Believe in yourself. Ultimately, you are the decider of yourself. Decide.