Gloria to God:
Dear Almighty Father, what would You like to tell me this morning?
God:
Decisions. Decisions are made by the heart. All decisions are heart decisions.
Gloria:
Yet when someone makes a decision against his heart?
God:
He is following the fear in his heart.
Gloria:
Let's say a man doesn't marry the woman he loves, because of family or societal pressure. Could it be that deep down he knows the marriage won't work?
God:
That is possible, certainly. Also likely is his fear of its not working.
Gloria:
I wanted to marry a certain man so many years ago, like 30 years ago, and I really and truly think it would not have worked; I suspect that marriage for me with anyone would not have worked, but I am certain it would not have with that man, no matter how much I loved him, or thought I did.
God:
In that particular case, the decision was out of your hands — or was it? And what you mean by "working out" and "not working out" and what I mean may be two different things.
Gloria:
Yes.
God:
Whatever transpired, it worked out. If you can see that, how much lighter you will feel. The situation worked itself out due to the inner direction of your hearts. No matter how distraught you were when that man — to your mind abandoned you — within you was an ever so tiny thread of relief.
Now, let's go to more inspiring matters. What is the lesson in today?
A Course in Miracles, Lesson 272:
"How can illusions satisfy God's Son? … What but Your memory can satisfy Your Son? I will accept no less than You have given me … Heaven can be chosen just as easily as hell, and love will happily replace all fear."
Gloria:
I sure want Heaven, dear God. I hope I have chosen it.
God:
Pay attention to your thoughts. If they are on joy, you have chosen Heaven. If they are on less than joy, you have not.
Gloria:
Can it be so simple?
God:
It is so simple.
Gloria:
Last night before I fell asleep, I saw so many faces, so real, one after the other. Past life faces?
God:
Perhaps. Perhaps divinities.
Gloria:
Do You mean deities?
God:
Not necessarily. Perhaps you were seeing saints.
Gloria:
The pictures were like great paintings, some of them anyway.
God:
How beautiful each face you saw, yes?
Gloria:
Yes, but not beautiful in the common sense, but beautiful in the art sense.
God:
Happy is the heart in Heaven. That means whosoever is happy on earth has chosen happiness and is in Heaven. All have moments of happiness, and those are moments of Heaven. Even those spare moments are worth a lot. And many wait for more of them and believe that Heaven descends to them rather than their ascending to Heaven.
Hands from Heaven reach down to lift you, but you must look up and reach out your hands. If you are looking glumly at your feet, how can the hands from Heaven reach your hands?
Gloria:
But in human life, is it really possible to be happy all the time?
God:
When you are not attached to the happenings. Everything in human life is temporary except God. Will souls you love fly out of their bodies and leave the body behind? Yes. Will circumstances and the way of life around you change? Yes. It must be they will. And you decide whether those changes grieve you.
Gloria:
I saw a glimpse of something on TV that mentioned how many years ago President Kennedy died. I thought, "And, oh, President Kennedy, and now Jackie is long gone too." I know that is how life goes, but I do feel sad.
God:
Gloria, instead of gone, think risen. Jackie has risen too.
Gloria:
It's not even that they longed to be together.
God:
But now they are truly together, in the true sense of together, with love and with God, and you can be sure they are in Heaven.
Gloria:
Lauren chatted with someone on Internet yesterday who thought that only kings and the very good had God in them, bad people did not. By that person's vision, dear God, hardly anyone would be in Heaven.
God:
No one is barred. No one is refused. No one is separated. Even the judgers are welcomed. There is no least in Heaven.
Gloria:
Did I take You away from the subject of choosing Heaven?
God:
Yes. When you are with Me, when you are aware of being with Me, you are in Heaven.
Gloria:
Yes. And yet I will have tears and sadness, even when You are talking to me. I wonder if I have the belief that it is not really possible to be happy much on earth.
God:
You do have that belief. Surely that was your mother's belief.
Gloria:
Yes.
God:
Now that you are aware of that belief, a misconceived belief, you can trash it. It is possible to be consistently happy on earth so long as you rely on your Source, My strength, My wisdom, My joy. Do you think I am ever unhappy?
Gloria:
I know the answer is that you are always happy, but I have to wonder whether I really believe that.
God:
Gloria, if you were 100% in full Light, full Strength, full Awareness; if you saw only the Truth around you; if you saw the Light of Christ in all faces; if you saw only good; if you had full knowledge of Truth that all is good; if you had vast vision and saw a beautiful dance of life and heard the music of it, felt a sweet breeze, sniffed jasmine flowers all day, saw only Light and art around you and so on, could you be less than happy?
Gloria:
No, my heart would be full with joy, full of You.
God:
Know these two things: I am Joy, and you can be happy on earth.
Love exists. This melding of hearts exists. Love walks the earth, the same love that fills Heaven, the same Life Force that creates babies and flowers, arranges and turns the planets and the seasons. This same Light of Love that is in Heaven swims in your heart. All the fullness of Joy and Light is there. You have tied little strings around your human heart. You placed them. You can displace them. And then you will know Heaven always, and you will feel Me stationed in your heart, lighting it up like diamonds. You will see Me sitting in all hearts, and you will know that all hearts are your own.
Gloria:
Dear Father, I think when the sages say that in enlightenment we have no desires, they mean that we have no need to control outcomes.
God:
Good.
Gloria:
It also occurred to me that the whole stream of life is unstressing; it's unwinding, unwinding patterns, unwinding accumulated stress. That's this whole process. And then when we are unwound from the past, from past lifetimes and a moment ago, we are then loosed from the bonds of ignorance and thus have liberation. All the unstressing is individual selfish ego stuff, and when it's unwound, we are One with You in every way.
God:
Good.
Gloria:
I also had another thought which I can't remember now. I am in the middle of meditating, but these thoughts were so strong to write.
Later…
Gloria:
I am reading a book I think is fine, named Soul Psychology. The author has a good chapter on A Course in Miracles. I think his chapter may well bring people to read A Course in Miracles, and I assure You I am not knocking this man or his book. Everything he says strikes me as true, but he has an understanding that isn't mine. He gives information and understanding, and I believe that for me it's not the information and understanding. Reading A Course in Miracles is an experience for me. It's not the insights, but rather my getting the insights. I have to do it myself. There is something about being in Christ's presence while reading the book. Someone can interpret, interpret correctly, but cannot translate Christ's consciousness.
I have heard someone say that knowledge in the books remains in the books. I believe that; knowledge doesn't just pop out at you.
At the same time, I think books have consciousness, and having books of high consciousness around has to be beneficial. Is there some truth in what I am saying?
God:
Yes.
Gloria:
If I had books of pornography on my shelves, even unread and unlooked-at books, they would have some kind of effect. Spiritual books, which I do have on my shelves, must also have some kind of effect.
God:
Yes. And also you affect the books. Your attention. One reflects the other.
Gloria:
There are certainly New Age spiritual books I buy — used for maybe 20 cents — that look good, but, when I get them home and spend a few minutes with them, I find I really don't want to read them, or I can't. Like the consciousness is off-kilter or just weak. It's better to recycle those books?
God:
Yes. Everything has an effect on everything. Attention is power. Take care what you put your attention on. Your attention is always good to have on Me, and Mine is on you.
Gloria:
Almighty Father, my dear mother never knew how to have fun. My father knew how to have fun. I don't seem to know how. Lauren does. She had friends over, and you should hear their laughter and fun.
God:
You are unleashing from your mother's sadness and sorrow, and you will have more fun. And Lauren will have more fun. I am a total Absorber and Radiator of fun.
Gloria:
I was thinking about a particular person and her situation, and that maybe social services should come in before someone gets hurt. And then I think, no, it's theirs to work out, and interference isn't help. Even if one should kill the other, it's theirs to work out. Is that true, God?
God:
There is truth there. In this situation, you are absolutely right. These are two adults. And you also know that, from your own childhood, you were better off that no one intervened.
Sometimes there has to be intervention. If you saw someone beating a horse, you would intervene. When you have a sense to intervene, ask yourself if it is for the sake of the other or others, or for your own sense of virtue. If it is for your own sense of virtue, don't do it.
Gloria:
The other day, when I was going to Ginnie's for a massage, there was a dog alone standing on the edge of the street. It was freezing outside, and I'm sorry I didn't stop and take the cold bewildered dog. I was late for Ginnie's, and I had meat in the car. I didn't stop. God, well, what would it really have mattered if I had been late, and I could have given the dog the meat I'd bought? I feel so bad.
God:
Next time, Gloria. Next time you see a soul in need, follow your heart and stop. I will tell you that that dog is fine; someone found him and took care of him. Next time it can be you.
Sometimes you are just programmed, programmed that you must not keep someone waiting and that you have to be practical about your purchases. Next time, think, who is in need? Don't berate yourself over this. You will have other opportunities. Please let this go from your heart, My heart's love, My Gloria.
Gloria:
Thank You. I had another insight. I realize that things will never be the way I think they should be. People will not. But they are the way You think in that You are allowing them the freedom You have given and are letting them work things out themselves.
God:
Yes.
Later…
Gloria:
Dear God, Lonnie is deeply depressed about her weight, feels she will never be thin, and that she might as well pig out. She feels that if she did get thin, she would gain it all back, and if even one person loved her, she could get thin. She doesn't believe anything Karen said to her; Lonnie says she can't draw and so on.
I am talking to you on my behalf. It's very hard for Lonnie, but it's so icky when she gets this way. I don't know what to say or do but stay as far away from her as I can. What can I say or do?
God:
Nothing. It's Lonnie's thing, not yours. You can listen; you can be supportive, and you can NOT take it too seriously. Above all, don't get caught up in it.
Gloria:
Why won't she follow a diet and lose weight?
God:
She wants her cake AND to be thin. She wants to eat anything she wants, and lose weight.
Lonnie is demanding to be thin and cannot accept that overindulgence is the culprit.
Lonnie would do well to join a group. She needs tremendous support in this, and needs to put herself into a situation where she can get it. She needs a group. You can't do it for her.
She is like a student who isn't passing math, let's say. She is great in everything but math. She would do anything to pass except study more and get help.
It is Lonnie's choice. She can struggle by herself. She can indulge and gain more weight. Or she can start a program and get the support she needs in order to continue with it. It's Lonnie's choice. What does she want more — to eat or to get slim? She will choose what she wants.
Whatever she chooses, she has to know it was her choice, and not a hardship I foisted on her.
I love Lonnie. She is a beautiful angel on earth. Her choices are clear. Not easy for her, but clear.
Lonnie waits for the day when she can eat all she wants and get or stay slim. So do you.
If one eats too much or eats too much of fattening foods consistently, they will gain pounds. If they consistently eat less, they will lose pounds.
Some might say that overeating is an illness. It is a substitute for reality.
The reality is that Lonnie is a beautiful person, and I love her.
She makes life hard for herself. To use her expression, she shoots herself in the foot.
Gloria:
Dear God, it's like Lonnie gives up ahead of time. She won't do art because she "isn't any good". That's not true, but she won't even do anything to get good and see what she can do. It's very hard for me to stay neutral.
God:
Stay neutral you must. Lonnie will pick herself up. She is pouting now and stamping her foot and shaking her fist at Me. I, the One Who loves her totally, unconditionally, and irrevocably. I love Lonnie with all my heart, and I wish I knew what to do to help her feel loved and to have the slim body she desires. Perhaps she would pray to Me.
I shall give her especial attention tonight. Lonnie's goodness should be noted. But it is her self-negativity that keeps men away, not her weight.
Have Lonnie say, "Dear Almighty Father, it is my desire to be slim and attractive, in my eyes as well as the eyes of the world. I pray You to help me turn my attention away from food. I pray you send a wonderful man to me because this is the year I wish to receive love and have someone to give it to, to receive a lifelong partner, and for me to feel myself the woman I wish to be. Will You help me? Will You help me have a better attitude? Will You help me to get back to meditating? I cannot do these things all by myself, and I ask for your help and blessings."
And I will say, "Lonnie, My dear child, I will help you in every way, and I need you to help Me too. I need your help in order for all your desires to be fulfilled. Please help Me."
Gloria:
Dear God, I spoke to Lonnie, and I feel like I do everything wrong.
God:
Give her the space she needs. You do not need to worry about Lonnie. Let Me take care of her. You take care of Our writing and your house. All will be well, you'll see.
Gloria:
Dear God, is there something You would like to tell me?
God:
Be patient with yourself and others.