When hearts touch, there is a recognition of the Oneness that is irrespective of whatever anyone thinks about it. The fact is that hearts touch all the time because they are already intimately connected. Connected is not the same as tied. Connected, hearts are free. The very connectedness makes the freedom from which there can be no departure.

A strong heart is not tough. A strong heart is generous. Tight hearts are pinched, and therefore weakened. Never think you must harden your heart in order to make it strong.

A tender heart does not get broken as you may have thought. You don't need to gird up your heart. Remember the resilient willow tree that bends and bows with the winds.

Your heart is not meant to dry up. How can your heart flow in love when it is wizened and dry? Refreshen your heart. Tears were meant to moisten your heart, not to dry it up.

Time and time again, you consider the mundane real life, and the life of the spirit as — what? Illusion? Fancy? Wishful thinking? Delusion? Improbable? Untrue? Nice once in a while, but really not serving you on the worldly plane?

What a conundrum the world is! How it has mixed up truth and fancy! The permanent is true, the temporary evanescent, yet the world calls the temporary real, and the eternal imagined. And you are the world. You hold on to its beliefs. You give great credence to the world and to that which seems negative.

Beloveds, you often think that life is supposed to go along according to your will. But it is My Will that be done, not yours. And yet you may have misunderstood My Will. You are not singled out. I do not plot. I play the orchestra. Give Me different notes if you do not like what I play. Your will and My Will are One.

How do you know when a thought that comes to you is Mine or yours? No bell goes off. No light flashes. No angel appears to point a sword to a sign that reads "God's thought" or "individual thought". And so you try to discern and make life harder than it need be.

Sometimes you just know, and sometimes you simply don't. But when you do know, it is not from analysis.

It is a common thing, My presence in your life. Your discovery of Me in your life is rarely, if ever, a great illumination. I am the Great Illuminator, but your discovery of My light, your dawning awareness of it is not earthshaking. You notice Me more as an afterthought. Your recognition is more, "Oh, so that's You." Not, "I am illuminated! I am changed! I am catapulted into Heaven. Hallelujah! I appear before God. I am partaking of a remarkable event. Amazement is mine!"

You appear before God in your own clothes.

Today We talk about life on Earth, the aspect of life that is so beautiful and yet so painful for you, the aspect that you hold on to while you shrug your shoulders at it. You have a mixed relationship with life on Earth, and you have a mixed relationship with yourself. And you have a mixed relationship with Me.

Sometimes you are the rebelling teenager. Sometimes you are the resigned old man. Sometimes you are the young child who stamps and cries. Sometimes you are the sun rising, and sometimes you are the sun setting, and, at one time or another, you are all the colors of the rainbow.

Dear Children, you do not need to be comfortable. Comfort is stasis.

You do not need to be uncomfortable either. Uncomfortable comes from control. When you have to be in control, you feel uncomfortable because control is resistance. Give up your control, and comfort and discomfort will be things of the past. They are of the past.

You not only have been wanting a smooth ride, you have been wanting a free ride.

You want transformation, but you do not want change.

You want what you want when you think you are supposed to have it.

Think more about Me.