My dear children, when you want something of someone, you are expecting something from them. When you want someone to do something a certain way, or be a certain way, you are trying to control. Control opposes. It is rigidity. Control closes down. You exert control. There is a force that exerts control. Freedom is not exerted. It is allowed. The nurturing of freedom opens to Heaven.

Feel what it feels like to free another soul on earth. To let them go their way, and you go yours. Sometimes your ways meet. Sometimes they part. Eventually they all meet with lifted hearts, because all paths converge in My heart.

When you free another to Me, you are giving great blessing. When you hold on to someone — which is the same as holding onto an idea in your mind — you are restricting them. Whatever your intentions, you cage them.

Practice giving freedom. Practice allowing others to soar free.

Consider the leaves on My beautiful trees. You do not order them to turn color in the fall. You do not tell them which color and when. You do not hurry them nor slow them down. You do not tell them how to fall. You do not say, "Now, this leaf over here, and that one over there." You do not order an oak to become a willow. You do not order a tree to grow green leaves in the spring, or a rose to bloom.

What is it that you do then? You watch the transformation of nature. There is awe in your heart. You let the trees fulfill themselves and the roses to bloom the colors they will, and all the while, you are the one who is transformed.

But when it comes to My children, you want your design to be fulfilled. And when it is not, you, at the very least, set your lips in a straight line.

You are not here on blessed earth to approve or disapprove. You are not here to convert others. You are not here to make sure that life converges to your picture.

You are here to bless the divergence of My children on earth. When you know they are in My care, when you know they are as much on their way to Me as are you, then you see beauty, and you can let them go. When you entrust others to My care, you are freed.

One who binds another binds himself.

One who frees others frees himself.

The controller is the controlled.

Do not assume roles.

Your role is not to be strict teacher, improver, or adjucator.

Your role is to be the child I made you to be.

You have enough to do to stop controlling yourself and trying to make yourself into someone else's picture of you. Isn't it you who tells Me that you have too much to do and cannot possibly do it all? Leave the world to Me, and you will focus your energy. You will have energy. Dissipate your God-given energy no longer.

Picture in your mind a cattle ranch. The gates open wide, and the cattle go free. At first it is tumultuous, but then the sound of hooves quiets down.

The cattle are all your preconceived ideas, and opening the gate is letting them go.

Picture yourself blessing each person you care about and caring about them enough to set them free. You are not abandoning them. You are releasing your imagined held-onto hold. You are giving them to My loving jurisdiction. When you free someone, you are freeing them to Me. What is so hard about freeing loved ones? They will find their way without your exertion. They will find their way better without your overseeing.

Entrust yourself to Me. Trust that you are getting through the brambles of life. The brambles are manifestations of your attempted control. They are what you have held on to. The brambles of life are the barbed wire of control. Now, breathe in. And as you breathe out, fences melt, great pastures appear, and you are free to walk the cascading hills.