Gloria to God:

My daughter did the assignment you gave her on self-love, to write down everything she liked about herself, and then to pick the three that were most important to her and why. I also did it for myself. We shared many of the same qualities and their importance to us. Programming? Truth?

In the same vein, I caught a bit of a writer on TV talking about his book, Messages from My Father, and I believe he was talking about programming. In his case, some very nice stuff. He said that he thought we all had themes in our childhood that were handed down to us. His was: Always be a mensch.

I asked my daughter what she thought she had gotten. She said that from her father that she was unlovable. From me that it was okay to be different from everybody else, even that it was better to be.

From my mother, I got: life is full of woe and you're defeated. From my father I got, not in words, but from his way, that life is to be reflected upon.

God, is anything original? Did I ever have an original thought?

God:

I am Original. I am your Origin.

Few thoughts were your own.

More now.

Gloria:

Is there value in an exercise of thinking of the themes we grew up with?

God:

There is value in everything.

Sure, recognize old refrains. Then let go of them and be with Me. Give Me your old thinking and start anew. Be a blank page rather than a crowded one. Be new every day. How nice would that be. Nothing carried over from even the day before. How much more energy you would have. How much closer to Me you would be. If everyone started with a clean slate, history would not repeat itself. Not your personal history nor the world's.

If everything were forgotten, what would you have? You would have Me. Pure love and everything. You would have everything.

Later…

Gloria:

Today is the forty-fifth anniversary of my father's death. I wasn't thinking about my father's death in what was being written above, but I see now how Your words really were dealing with issues I needed to look at.

Karen called me after what had been written above. She saw that I was not always connected to You and myself because of things I had convinced myself of based on my parents' convictions.

The long and the short of it is that I have been holding on to my father and what he meant to me, and I have to let go. I have to let go of him. The memory of what he meant to me and my longing for him are as strong in me now as if he had died yesterday. I have to let go of my father for myself and for him. I hold his soul back. I try to keep him here with me.

I don't understand everything Karen was showing me, but this is clear: I have to love You first, and others after. Somehow my attachment to my father blocks me from full acceptance of You and myself. I do not yet have self-love. I do not yet feel Your love fully or always. I know this is true, or I wouldn't feel sad and lonely.

God:

It is always sad and lonely without full recognition of Me. That is the separation. That is what suffering is. That is what suffering tells you.

Come back to Me, Gloria. Put no other before Me. Nothing and no one else suffices.

I will take care of you and your father and your daughter and all in the world. You do not need your earthly father any longer. I am your Father. At this moment, if you had the choice to be with Me or with your earth father, you would hesitate for a moment. You would. You think you would be happy if your daddy could be restored to you as he was. On thought, you know that isn't so.

You learned from your mother that the more you mourned, the bigger your love was, and to love big was important. You also learned that to love and suffer were synonymous.

Now is time to unlearn that.

Gloria, love lightly. To love deeply doesn't necessarily mean to love truly. Loving deeply often has tentacles.

Love your father lightly. That is what letting go means. Love what he meant to you. Love him like a beautiful rose. When the rose dies, you do not enshrine it. It gave you its beauty while it could, and you accepted it, but you cannot hold on to it.

All the world's beauty passes before your eyes. All the world's beauty passes. What is permanent save for Me, Gloria?

Consider it noble to say goodbye to your father. Consider it ignoble to hold on to him. Consider it virtuous to enjoy and foolish to suffer.

Loving big, as you do, gums up your life.

When you hold on as you do, you hold yourself in check. You cannot hold another without holding yourself.

Let everyone free. Let them fly anywhere. Even to Heaven. Then you can fly. Fly your heart to Me. C.O.D.