Beloved child. You notice I do not call you beloved adult. Adult is a world thought. All are children. I see not one adult. You think it is an admirable thing to be an adult, that it is an accomplishment, and you are proud to be it, but adulthood is a pretend thing. All are children. To be a child is worthy of appreciation. Be more child and less adult.

The term adult seems to apply to increasing mind and depreciating heart. Adultness favors cool while childhood favors warm. Adulthood favors responsibility while childhood favors joy. Adultness favors length, and childhood favors spontaneity. Who is closer to Heaven? Why would anyone want to further themselves from Heaven and call this adulthood?

Remember, you are not your body. You do not age. Your body ages. You never do. You can have been around a long time, or you can have been around a short time, but you, the soul of you, the essence of you, the import of you does not age. Do not grow up, beloveds, if that means leaving your heart behind.

To be an adult often means to be more conforming. In truth, less original. Less free, more bound. All the no's of life have appliquéd themselves on you. No's are embedded like tattoos. Hard to remove. But appliqués and tattoos are add on's. They are not really yours. Isn't it symbolic that make-up is for adults, clear skin for children?

Adults contemplate death. Children embrace life.

To be as the little child is to be who you are. You are as innocent as the day you were born. All your sophistication is a false front.

That you are a child, that you are My child, is a statement of truth. Be wide-eyed again. Long experience restricts you. It doesn't advance you. What does it save you? What does it cost?

A child doesn't weigh life, but if he did, he would weigh it in terms of joy. If he hammers nails into wood and takes the nails out again, he has joy. If he trickles sand on his feet at the beach, he has joy. He has joy in the sun, and he has joy in the puddles of the rain. He has joy. If you must measure your life, measure it in joy. If you must add up something, add up joy instead of years.

If adulthood takes away from joy, how valuable is it?

Is adulthood sometimes a half-death? Is it a meting out of punishment? Then maintain childhood.

Turn somersaults rather than all the fear you turn in your heart. Be fearless. Fear is a thought, and thoughts are capable of change. Fear may not be amiable to change, but, in the final analysis, fear has to do your bidding. No longer be afraid of fear. It's a thought like any other. The thought of fear makes fear appear, but fear does not exist separate from your thoughts. This is another way of saying that fear is at your beck and call. It has no existence of its own. Fear is a puff of smoke. Smoke by its nature will disappear.

Adulthood becomes complex. Childhood is simple. When did complexity and complication become valued, and simplicity not? Be simple. Be clear. Be bold, for what else is there for you to do? When you know you are the child of My heart and that I foster you, boldness isn't even bold. Boldness is the simplicity of natural existence. You are Being. And Being puts its shoulders back today and stands firm in wholeness.