Mercy means thankfulness, beloveds. I am as thankful for you, as you are for Me. I am more so because I love very well and I see your worth more than you do. Mercy, as I use it, is another word for love. Mercy is not intellectual. It is not a decision. Mercy is what shows when one loves. Mercy is how love may be perceived by those who bestow it or receive it and who may be surprised by it.

What if there is only good fortune? What if bad luck does not exist?

When I created the Universe, I said it was good. I did not say, mostly good. Or sometimes good. Or once in a while good. I said good. I did not say goodness and mercy were tempered with less than goodness and mercy.

How did your individuality come to be you? How is it you have the talents you have? How is it you are influenced by urges within you? How is it that one person becomes what is a called a great success, and another does not do well in terms of the world? How is it that one can come from a favorable background and not do well, and someone from an unfavorable background with all the odds against him can do exceedingly well?

How much is fate, you ask, how much is karma?

Beloveds, it is not fathomable. You cannot understand what you cannot understand.

How can a heart that longs for truth yet be cruel? Cruelty has lengths, but you have all touched it even if only in thought. Why does cruelty so consume your mind? Why does an ill-advised action of another consume you? Why does your belief in evil on Earth make you doubt Me? Doubt the cruelty instead. It is an aberration. It is an insult to My love. But dwell on My love and not the insult of the world. The more you dwell on My love — the more you immerse yourself in My love — the less cruelty will manifest anywhere.

It is good for you to know that you don't have to bend to every circumstance that comes along. But that does not mean for you to be resolute. This is not a question of will. It is a question of coming from strength. Toss out all your ideas of weakness.

You are not a piece of wood that is buffeted up and down by the ocean. You are the ocean. The ocean does not resist what sails on it, but it doesn't flounder either.

The winds that blow are not the maker of you.

I am the Maker of you.

When you accept where and what your Real Existence is, you won't be possessed so much by the fears that presently possess you. Will you agree that fear has you in its clutches, that it often motivates you?

What does fear think it is? It thinks it is premonition, and it thinks it is insurance. It thinks it is a seer and a swordsman in one. It thinks it is your defender when it is your undoer.

But fear doesn't really think at all. It is you who does the thinking for it. Fear uses you to make itself big, and you comply.