Gloria to God:

Dear God, well, I'm really going through it. Something got set off, some huge old wound within me. The recent thing in no way merits my reaction. It truly was not a rejection that happened. It was setting a boundary that needed to be set. So why do I feel like I do?

God:

What are you feeling?

Gloria:

My heart is raw. It is like I have been clobbered. It's how I felt when I was fired or dumped by a man. I feel like I've been put on an ash-heap.

When I talk to You and listen to You, I feel strong. But when I am by myself, I start crying. Nothing really happened, so why am I falling apart?

God:

You are not falling apart. You are being made whole. You were fragmented, and now you're being put back together. It just takes a little while for the glue to stick.

Tell Me, what does your pain do for you?

Gloria:

Makes me look at You.

God:

You have a tendency to put all your eggs in one basket. You can do that only with Me.

Gloria:

I say I want only You, but apparently that is not so.

God:

That is the truth. That is the real truth.

Gloria:

Then why would I be suffering?

God:

Because you thought the other was Me.

I am all that you have. And I am the All. You can only suffer when you try to define Me, Gloria, or put Me somewhere outside of you.

Gloria:

But You are in everyone.

God:

Yes, I am. But you don't put the God in another ahead of the God in you. I am the Almighty. All are even. My children are equal. Take your rightful place in the universe.

When you can have Me directly, why covet Me indirectly?

All your internal arguments are really with Me, dear Gloria. Your perceived original abandonment that you mourn is not from your mother, not from lover, not from friend, but from Me.

Before you knew the word God, you thought I had tossed you out of Heaven down to earth by yourself.

The original abandonment. The original destitution. The original fall. Evicted from God's Kingdom.

Fired from a job on earth. Tossed over by a man. Set straight by a friend, you see these all as your eviction. Even now you do.

Any bone you have to pick is with Me.

Any hurt in your heart is with Me, is with your fantasy concerning Me.

Accept that I love you no matter what. Accept that I am with you always. Accept that you write fiction in your head.

Accept that any hurt or discomfort you have is fiction. Consider any joy you have as true.

Consider that you have one friend, and that is I. That is what I mean when I say to rely on no one else.

That does not mean that others are unreliable. It means you ask too much of them.

You cannot ask too much of Me.

Learning to return to Me means that you learn I never tossed you out. I never dropped you from Heaven onto earth. You merely took a form there known, in this case, as Gloria.

The you that is all has never wandered from My heart and Kingdom.

I would like you to do something for Me. Look for signs of love. Concede that abandonment is impossible. Concede. Look for the signs of love, and accept them.

A great friend told you truth, and you weep over it. Weep for joy.

At the same time, cry your tears. They are old from long ago, you are right.

When there is too much illusion, tears let some out.

Mother Divine:

Come sit with me a while, and we'll have a cup of tea and look at a picture book of life on earth. One picture after another. The pages ruffle fast. And now we start a new book.

You fell and scraped your knee, no more.

Your puppy got a thorn in his paw.

Turn the page.

You got an email.

You didn't get an email.

Seasons change. Leaves fall. Snow snows. Doors open, and doors close.

Sky is blue, and you roam fields.

This is the picture book.

Nothing has truly happened but the turning of pages in a book.

And then there is another book.

A dog wags his tail.

Birds sing.

Another day is past.

Another page is turned.

And nothing has happened. Nothing at all.

You read a story and thought you were in it. You thought things could happen to you.

You also thought you could be passed by, overlooked, but you are the one turning the pages.

Take your eyes off the book a moment and picture God a moment. Reach up and pull Him down from Heaven like a window shade, and never roll Him up again.

You can keep God with you or not. You can keep Him in your awareness or not. Or you can get caught up in the picture book.

And, even if you do, there is another picture book and another.

And that is life.

Suffering is absorption in the book.

Joy is taking your eyes off the book and then putting them back on it.

Keep God with you as an amulet. Keep Him pressed to your heart. Keep him in sight.

Keep Him, for He keeps you.

Later…

Gloria:

Dear Mother Divine, something big is going on here. Nothing really happened in this whole thing. I wasn't thrown out; I wasn't dumped etc. I was told something for my benefit and growth, but it triggered something.

Karen would say that, if I feel hurt, which I do, I am trying to control because, after all, what someone else says or does, what is it to me? But apparently, it is something to me. Expectation is a form of control. Something unexpected occurred, and I am thrown. I can say all these wise things, but I start to cry, over what, I don't really know.

Something is out of place within me, like I need a shaking, or this is the shaking. The bottom has fallen out all of a sudden because of a few truthful words.

When I talk to you or God or read over His and your words, I am fine, but then I eat a piece of toast, and I fall apart.

I know this will pass, and I know I've gone through worse. But then, at least, there was some kind of justification.

Lauren is reading a book that sorts people. One type is a Drama Queen. If I looked at myself from the outside, I would say I am making drama out of nothing. No one has died, left me, been cruel or anything of the kind, yet I am reacting as though there had been a tragedy. This isn't a show for anyone else because I only disintegrate when I am alone, and I don't even know why I am crying.

Mother Divine:

What God said is true. You are reassembling yourself. Ego leaves, and you think you are bereft.

God and I nourish you and see you through this transition of awareness to who you are and the strength you contain. You think you are falling apart in weakness, but it is weakness you are shedding.

A beautiful bird molts and bemoans its appearance. Then new feathers grow, and the golden bird is in greater glory.

No one has forsaken you. And you cannot forsake yourself. You exist eternally.

Shed your feathers. Tear them off if you want. Wounds will heal, and you will be neutral and spin eternally on the axis of the earth.

You are being groomed. Consider this time an initiation for which you will be grateful. Consider this time a final exam. You always worried your way through those, and you always excelled.

You are going to a greater height, and you are feeling dizzy. That is all. The sense of upheaval will not last long. It will settle, and you will even dance and balance on one toe.

Consider this that you think you are going through as emergency surgery. Right now you feel awful and think you will never feel better, but you will, you will feel much better.

Do you remember years ago when Dr. Vermuelen told you that you were going to have great happiness? You thought that you were already having it, but it is just going to begin.

I do not say these things to make you feel better. I say only truth, and truth is what you must listen to.

Fear is not truth, so do not listen to it. Kick it out. Make room for the full blossoming of God's love.