Nancy O. to God:

God, my Divine Consciousness, I ask You to give us some guidance on things that we all seem to have cultural taboos about. Many times we ask for love, but love comes along in the body of someone too old or young for our cultural mores. In Your world, should we follow these leads? or continue to wait for someone closer to our own age, which might also mean values. I feel like I ask for love and loving people appear, but not within the social norms I expected. This also applies to educational levels, racial and religious differences and other social constructs that we use to separate and judge. Are these guidelines wrong? When and how should we apply them?

Thank You for Your constant love and caring.

God to Nancy O.:

Beloved Nancy, bodies get in the way. Souls do not. Bodies are older or younger or more educated or more culturally correct. Souls love. Bodies do not.

And yet on earth you are in bodies.

We know that many of the rules on earth are arbitrary. Something is in today that is out tomorrow. It is brave to go beyond the guidelines the world makes, and yet it is also not necessary to fly in the face of all the world's perceptions.

We come back to control, dear Nancy.

When love comes, be love that receives.

I would not tell anyone to deny love.

Let it be. Let it live its course.

Yet the world teaches that certain conditions must be met. These concepts may be based on valid world experience or may be based on nothing consequential at all, just that the world says so. What the world says also changes. The world can be harsh with those who go against its say-so. I tell you to love, but I am not ordering you to go upstream against the society in which you live. You do not have to take on the world. At the same time, the world often reacts to how you feel about something. The world picks up on it. But there are many factors at play.

Are you thinking of love in the context of marriage, Nancy O.? If your love in a marriage has to fit in certain confines that the world has set up and that are built into you, you have to pay attention. The world interferes, but My children have not escaped from purchasing world thoughts.

So how do you live in the world, having absorbed the world thinking, and still love where love takes you?

When love does not mean ownership, it is easier.

Hearts that love do not have to physically live together.

Cannot all people be friends?

Does love have to be permanent?

Does it have to be expressed in one way and not another?

Be aware.

The odds of a sixteen-year old and a fifty-year old having a successful marriage together are not so great in the world. You cannot ignore that.

But does eight years make so much difference?

Who says so? Do you? Maybe you do.

The odds of any two people of the same age leading a happy marriage are not great either.

So much depends on the two individuals.

All depends on the two individuals and their expectations and what they can and are willing to deal with.

Looks may be important to you. Or maybe they are at first, and you get past it. Someone's grammar may take on great significance. How much should it matter? What is it after all? But does it matter? Often.

If you were not in bodies living on earth, the only consideration would be your love. But without your bodies, love would be quite different and it would not be questioned.

Love does not have to be crowned.

It doesn't have to be tossed away either.

Can you love for a time? Some can and some cannot.

Can you let love be what it is while it is?

Must it be delineated?

Be glad for love, dear Nancy, whatever form it is in.

But if the form matters to you, it matters to you.

I cannot answer your question, dear Nancy.

You have to answer it.

Be aware.

Of course, many of the mores of the world are silly.

But they are, nevertheless, the mores of the world you live in.

How far afield can you go? Do you have to?

Surely all the world's best suggestions, all the outer requirements the world authors, do not guarantee happiness in marriage or in life. You can become a doctor, marry the right age, the right religion, the right background, and heartache comes of it.

Here's what it comes down to, dear Nancy.

There are no guarantees.

You do the best you can with who you are and what you have learned. There is no defeat and no victory.

Love, whether close or at a distance, is love just the same.

Be aware of expectation.

Be of love. And Mine is guaranteed.

* * *

Rita to Heavenletters:

Dear Gloria, keep up the good work with Heavenletters. You have a very sweet vocation.

I am partial to flowers, and I particularly enjoyed the October 16 "wildflower" story!

Marianne to Tina:

Dear Tina, I have to tell you that my spontaneous response to your Godsends flower arranging was "Wonderful!" It felt so right, and as you described your feelings when arranging the flowers, and buying more materials for more flower arranging, you really conveyed an image of a person following her bliss. I'd say go with it! Keep us posted.