Admit, you have sometimes had a habit of squeezing your heart shut. Whenever you are on the defensive, you stiffen. You tighten your heart. There are times when you are quick to cut your heart in two.

You want to be shown constant love, even as you withdraw your heart to protect yourself from love rushing toward you, perhaps from fear that love will later be pulled away from you, or that you will misinterpret the love you noticed all the while. You will resist being swept up in love, for you have undoubtedly learned the hard way.

Pulling away from love in your heart is definitely the hard way. You may see love like the Sun, and yet you worry about sunburn or a freckle. You veer away from the Sun which is, after all, your true sustenance. You evade and elude the Sun. You cover yourself up from the Sun.

In the same way, you veer away from being vulnerable to Love and a possible charade being perpetuated upon you or your perpetuating upon yourself. Oh, how you want a signed receipt of your love before it is easy for you to give it. You are not quite able to give your heart away for nothing.

Here is the delicate point:

Other people do not have to do anything. They do not have to reciprocate your love. You are not to slay your love before it even sees the light of day. Let everyone do as each perceives and each decides what comes next.

Anyone can sit in the shade all he wants for whatever reason or no reason, yet you are not to keep your love in a little impecunious change purse. No, you are to open your heart wide and let room for love to enter. Your responsibility is to give out and not to be accountable for a return. You take a chance on love, even on the love in your own heart.

And, if love from your own heart flees, well, love is as love does, and you are also free to let your love continue to be love without your owning it or another's owning it. Any way you slice it, love is not to be held onto for dear life. Love is love, and love is not a performance or a debt anyone has to repay.

If you want to be indebted to love, be indebted that you have and have had love in your heart, even if your love flew away or the love from another to you flew away. Yes, love is a bird with wings and is not to be caged. Love cannot be an obligation from anyone's point of view.

Some of My children love more easily and love continually whereas for others, it is not so easy to keep on loving. Some loves seem to have a hiatus and then restores itself. Some of My children's love seems to come and go, and, yet, remember, there is, nevertheless, love within you that transcends time and place.

Marriage is a challenge. The one person you marry may seem to be the most difficult of all to be one with. Sometimes you find a way to stay in harmony, and sometimes you take a detour. Either way, you are heart-sore. And, sometimes, you stay together because you cannot bring yourself to leave. There is so much tied up in a vow.

Who knows beforehand the one he or she is marrying? You may not know who you yourself are before you tie the knot. And, anyway, who knows the future? Who knows how to separate the future from the past? Who knows what is right and what isn't, and who knows how to reconcile their lives with their dreams?

Everyone does the best he can at the time. You are not the long arm of the law. You are not a posse. If you have to let someone go, you have to let someone go. This is a no-fault policy. Why resent someone for their living in the world as they are rather than as you would prefer them to be? Letting go is letting go of control over that which is not in your provenance to control. If you must let go, what else is there to do but let go, and let go graciously?