Tina to Gloria:

Dear Gloria, I'm not doing well. I don't want to dump on folks, so I didn't want to write. I don't want to contaminate anyone with my sludge.

The message from God for me is taking a long time to integrate and is going down hard. The words just kept roaring in my head and felt like they were knocking the guts out of me: "selfish", "mind-stalker", "That wasn't love."

Gloria — I spent eight and a half years of my children's youth (the most important and special years of this lifetime for me) not being present for them because of my fantasy, and I was so thrilled with myself for not shrinking from a goal and intention.

This was the first time ever in my life that I didn't fold out of fear and lack of faith. I thought it was faith that was keeping me going. Can you even begin to imagine how confused I feel now? I feel like I must have been using God all along in my imagination to fuel something that hurt many.

Now, when I need God the most in this pain, what hurts most deeply is realizing how clueless I am about what I have been relating to all these years as my strength and my Source. If it were only my ego giving me courage…I just want to hide from everybody. I'm so ashamed that I have been sharing my journal and feelings about where I thought I was on my spiritual path and then to have God expose me for where I really have been all this time.

Have to go. My son is upset that he has to wait so long for his computer.

Tina to God:

Dear God, thank you for being so honest with me. My heart is certainly rejoicing to have the truth amplified loud enough for me to hear over the din of my screaming ego.

These questions keep floating to the surface of my mind as I go through the process of this releasing:

Since childhood, I have been trained that keeping my word is very important. I integrated that as a high truth, and in witnessing my life and others' the belief in it is only reinforced. So, when Robert and I vowed to You to keep one another as life partners "through all that life shall bring, as long as we both shall live", I didn't realize that a paper from a courthouse took jurisdiction over our promise to each other and to You. I didn't realize that a divorce could be a more inclusive reality than "through all that life shall bring". I thought that the divorce was just a "whatever" that life had brought, but which You and we would rise above.

I do know people who have their best growth after their divorce and then get back together.

I am such a strong believer in healing, and I do so much reading about love always being truth and separation being false, that it was no problem whatsoever for me to assume that a divorce was no big deal. I just thought You were giving me a really stimulating homework assignment in the power of positive thinking.

Will You please tell us something about humans giving their word? Is it not a valuable intention to expect to keep it? I am obviously marinated in the expression "the darkest hour is just before the dawn", and I can go endlessly without letting go when I hold these sorts of things in mind.

I truly believed, until Your recent letter to me that, when we looked at changing circumstances through the lenses of these types of teachings, we were following the disciplines that allowed us to be Your disciples. I thought our faith and our ability to keep our sights focused on Your higher purpose was the force that effected physical reality, not the other way around.

I must have it all wrong and need a lot of repetition from You to set me straight, just as I do on the subject of responsibility, and the meaning of neutral. I now realize that I don't have a clue what "love" or "commitment" is either and that I need major remedial education.

I have been divorced twice before. I do know that there is a place for divorce, and I have known the exhilaration of release from the misery of marriage. But, both those times, I was careful not to buy into any "til death do us part" stuff, because I knew I wasn't in any type of self-esteem or maturity place. I never considered putting those kinds of words into my vows with Robert either. He is the one who asked that we have them, and he did the wording there.

Dear God, if Robert was obviously so much more casual about what marriage means than I am, why did he put that part in? It would have been hard enough for me to do the letting go of the strongest attachment I have ever know with another human. Why did he set me up to have to break my vow to You?

The loathing of breaking my word to You is the part that has me feeling like a butterfly stuck on flypaper. Isn't this so? Does this mean that I make more out of something than is really there? If I want more than anything to keep my word when I make a vow to You, does that mean I am obsessed with You? Is it possible to be obsessed with You? Will my obsessive focus on loving Robert be something that can become holy if I keep this skill I have been developing, and shift the focus to You instead of him? You know, like transferring funds from one account to another? I have certainly had years of training on keeping a mental focus on a focal point from the time I wake up in the morning til the time I go to sleep.

Is there any usefulness that might come of this?

God:

Dear Tina, where shall I begin with you?

First, know My love for you. Because I shake your ego loose, doesn't meant I don't love you, or you Me!

Loss of ego is a death. It is a separation. It is a separation from untruth.

You are like a terrier who holds on with his teeth and won't let go no matter what! You started one way, and you will keep on because you started that way. You put tremendous energy into holding on, dear Tina. That energy can be put to better use.

That there is no separation does not mean you must hold on to your attachment to Robert or your attachment to your word. You do not need the physical Robert nor attention from him.

Living up to a promise is a good thing, but remember you have nothing to prove. You cannot keep your promise when the other party is no longer in it with you. You cannot make Robert keep his promise so you can keep yours. You have tried to bend Robert to what you want and have believed in with disregard for his space and his feelings.

Loving Robert and keeping your promise to him, now mean to let him go.

Being right is irrelevant. Being right has nothing to do with this now, dear Tina. Love has to do with this. Love frees and does not hold on. Being right has to do with ego. You never owned Robert, Tina. No one owns anyone.

It is not your place any longer to question why Robert asked for the vows he wanted. That is the past. Maybe he meant it then, or who knows? And what does it matter, dear Tina? What does it matter? You do not need to tie all the ends together. You need to let go.

What do you fear will happen when you let go of Robert? I am not talking divorce papers. I am talking you, your preoccupation with Robert. What terrible thing will happen?

When one of My children finds she loves a man more than anything in the world, something is off-kilter. Loving a man to distraction is a sign to look at yourself and what you are getting carried away with. What is controlling you? Look at what is happening and not what you want to be happening.

Yes, if you must be obsessed with something, be obsessed with Me. It will not overrun Me. But it is better to not be obsessed. Yes, obsession makes too much of something. You cannot make too much of Me, but you cannot control Me either, dear Tina. Be ardent with listening to Me and letting go of the past.

Let us go to truth, Tina, dear.

You thank Me for being honest with you, but, in truth, your feelings are tinged with: "How can He do this to me? How can He let me be so wrong?"

I appreciate your desire to be courteous and respectful, Tina. And you are! But you and I are about honesty. Would you agree that your true thoughts are more like arguments than acceptance? That is perfectly all right. But I want you to know where you are.

Surrender comes hard to you, Tina.

I am not your beliefs. Your beliefs are your beliefs. They are what you think. Because you have thought one way does not mean you always must. Let go of your beliefs. Don't believe so much in what you believe in. Belief is not faith.

Tina, I release you from any vows you have made to Me or another. Vows are words. In your heart you want to be truth. So just be it, dear one.

I will tell you, despite what you may feel, you are making great progress. That progress would not be so painful except that you resist it.

Love Me.

Don't try to prove it.

Be it.

Love yourself more than you think you love Robert.

Love Tina.

Love Me.

And how happy We shall be.