Gloria:
Dear God, Lauren read what You said last night and said, "I can't do that."
First of all, I would like to make sure that the above message was from You without my influence.
God:
It was mostly from Me. Lauren has her mindset, and it's hard for her to shake it. You, Gloria, certainly can't shake it.
Gloria:
And You, dear God? You?
God:
I try, Gloria. My trying isn't effort, but it is an attempt. Lauren like everyone, in her own time; she has to come to Me herself. Of course, she knows her perceived situation is of her own making, and she can undo it as well.
Lauren seems to want to be right, and so she drags her feet.
The best you can do is to keep your distance, stop worrying, and have trust in Me and Lauren.
Gloria:
God, it was like she was snobbish about what You said. It wasn't good enough for her, or she was too good for it. She reminded me of a certain lady I know. Am I judgmental?
God:
Yes, you are being judgmental. If you were not being judgmental, you would not be so attached to Lauren's happiness or unhappiness.
It is hard for Lauren to accept that the rules of the universe apply to her. And, for you, it is hard to distance the content of your life from Lauren's.
When you are full in your career for Me, it will be easier for you and Lauren.
Lauren will come to see that her life, as she sees it, is of her making. She will stop seeing Me as the cause, and the One who must step in. I am here. I love her. But she digs her feet in, so to speak, and sees herself as put upon, and waits for the outer to change her inner.
This is not to say that Lauren has not made great progress. She has. I would love her to look at her progress. That is key. She looks at where she is not and then despairs.
It will be good for Lauren, as for everyone, to write down what she is grateful for rather than what she perceives as lack. You, too, Gloria.
Gloria:
I am grateful for You, dear God, and Mother Divine, Karen, Lauren, Florence, Nancy, Barbara, and the people in my life who care about me and whom I care about. I am grateful for dear Sunshine and Ginger. If we could have their attitude, dear God.
God:
Ah, yes, if you would! Would, not could, because, of course, you can if you would.
Gloria:
I wonder, in my life, did I rail against You as I sense Lauren does? I don't remember that I did. I don't think so. I know I wept plenty, but I don't remember holding You responsible.
God:
You always felt My benevolence. You may have blamed this or that on something, but you didn't blame it on Me. You held Me dear long before you knew.
And so it is with Lauren, yet it is harder for her to surrender. You had a dear father who showered you with love like rain on the earth.
Lauren had a drought, and she lets this hold her back from love.
A Course in Miracles, Lesson 305:
"This is a peace that Christ bestows on us … this peace envelops [the world] and gently carries it to truth…for love has come … Father … help us today to accept Your gift…it has come to save us from our judgment on ourselves."
Gloria:
Oh, dear God, give me Christ's vision.
God:
I have given it. See with eyes of love, and you will know it.
Gloria:
God, does Lauren blame me for her unhappiness?
God:
She blames you and she blames Me and she blames herself. There is no blame. There is undoing is all. Lauren can undo her heaviness of spirit in the flash of an eye.
Gloria to Mother Divine:
Dear Mother Divine, what will you say on Lauren's behalf?
Mother Divine:
I say that Lauren is my heart's delight. No one reveals my soft energy more than Lauren, and I ask her to not take on hard edges. They do not serve her well, and she does not need them. Softness is Lauren's key. Softness allows her to bend with the universe.
All the love Lauren desires, human and divine, is hers but for the sweet asking and sweet accepting.
Lauren's softness will allow her to surrender to God. This surrendering is not conceding or ceding anything; it is gaining, the gaining of peace, the gaining of love.
Her resistance keeps peace and love at bay.
Lauren has a key that will open the treasures of the universe for her. But she has little traps set along the way. When God does not step over her traps, then she says, "Aha, you see, I am right." She asks for a sign, but she looks for signs of betrayal.
If she will remove the traps she has set for herself, all obstacles will be removed. She will have removed them. Lauren's vision is pure, except when it applies to herself. Lauren has a tendency to want to rule God. Does she want to prove her illusion of disfavor?
God is good and loves her. Does she want Him to appear a bad guy who disappoints her and neglects her and doesn't seem to care or understand, as her earthly father did unto her?
Or is it that she wants to prove it is all her fault. If her father did not show his love, then it comforts her to know she caused it. That gives her hope then that she can then uncause it.
How complicated the game of the universe. How simple the truth of God.
Lauren has to prove nothing. But she does have to be willing to accept God's love.
What would happen if she accepted it? What would happen if she accepted herself as worthy? I would be so happy for Lauren to step out of the past. There is no reason for her to be held in the trenches. The war is over.
God loves her. I love her. With whom does she wage war?
And as for you, dear Gloria, her earth mother, back away and hold to your life and not hers. Trust Lauren to find her way to God and her own joy.
Lauren's magnificence has hardly begun. Think of how her natural joy will reveal herself in rich colors, texture, and motion on paper. Think, what if she created her heart of love in a concrete form that all could see and be lifted by.
What if she expressed herself on paper? What would happen? What would she be giving up but old worn-out tiresome beliefs?
Tell Lauren not to paint herself into a corner but to paint herself out. Lauren's hands are her future. God lies in her hands, as He does in yours.
Your medium is words. Lauren's medium is color and light.
I wish I knew what to do to coax Lauren away from defeated thinking. It does not become her. She wears clothes from thirty or more years ago, and they weren't her true clothes then either.
She told herself, "These must fit me. I'll put them on." So she carries the proverbial sackcloth and ashes of thought.
Lauren is a divine soul. She has special work to do. All in Heaven want her happiness. I know of no one on earth who does not.
Nothing holds dear Lauren back but herself, but she does not want to hear this. She wants to be thin but eat whatever she wants. "See, I'll never be thin," she says and thus weakly proves that she is unfairly treated.
I would like dear Lauren to step out of the past patterns to start a new day, a new dress, a new acceptance of the beauty of her soul and the beauty of life before her, and the beauty of her heart and her God-given abilities.
Lauren is nothing without God. He is her Helper. He is her Protector. She is His angel. God is not her Betrayer or Disappointer. He is God who loves her and wants more for her than she conceives of. It is time now for her to conceive it.
God has treasures laid up for her, and she must not pooh-pooh that any longer.
Lauren, pick up your torch. Pick up your card of life. Pick up what is at hand and make a picture from it. Put your life on paper. Get the angers and hurts out.
Then turn to your Heavenly Father and accept your rightful place beside Him. Give your light. Make pictures for children. Give them hope and light and show them their Heavenly Father.
What you need, give. What you have, give. What you are, give. Give color to the world.
Make pictures for Sunshine's and Ginger's pure striving souls. They will not comprehend, but they will know another form of your love.
Will you write to me, Lauren? Will you give me any messages you have for God? Will you give me your griefs and grievances? They are not worth much, and I will burn them for you.
Lauren, Light of the World, light yourself and be my friend and friend to yourself.
With all love and blessings for you, I stop my words now, but know I am right beside you all your life long. I am yourself, Lauren.
Later…
Gloria to Mother Divine:
Dear Mother Divine, what would you like to tell me tonight?
Mother Divine:
How much you are learning. Are you aware of it? Look at all that God is teaching you, and what a heavenly scholar you are. You are being tutored by God on how to live life on earth and in Heaven. What a joyous turn of events.
Gloria:
And you, dear Mother, all you are teaching me!
Mother Divine:
It is a supplement to your main course given by God.
Gloria:
I want to tell you how nice it is to begin to know you. You are different from God, and yet the same.
Mother Divine:
That is how souls on earth are also. Different and the same. Variations of One.
And do you have any idea of how focussed you are on God's work?
Gloria:
Yes, I am beginning to. Anything other than that is an interruption. Except at night, I am not focussed on it.
Mother Divine:
At night you are not focussed on anything! Your brain goes into neutral, or off. That is fine. During the day, you make hay while the sun shines. At night, you rest from it.
Do you know the name for what you are doing and becoming?
Gloria:
It is Devotion.
Mother Divine:
Yes, you are learning devotion. It is irresistible to you. Devotion is your heart flowing to God, and His returning to you. The ebb and flow of love is devotion. A gentle giving-in to the heart, a full-blown leaning into it, sitting on a soft cushion of devotion.
Devotion is a magnet, is it not?
Gloria:
Yes.
Mother Divine:
That is why it is irresistible. Not that you want to resist it. You want more and more. You are joined to God. You are learning His thinking and His heart. You are in God's school. He is your special tutor, and you are His special student. Teacher and student meet in Heaven, and there is perfect exchange of love.
It is a handshake. Whose hand is it? Why, it is both's. Separated, it is not a handshake. Together both hands become one.
And yours and God's hearts shake as well, greet is what I mean. Two hearts become One. That is devotion. It is a natural occurrence. It is most natural because it is most easy.
When blue and yellow meet, they become green. Is the blue lost or the yellow? No, they have merged.
And so your devotion merges you with God, and you become not less but more. You anticipate His will. You know what He wants and when, as a serving girl in olden times would know when her master wanted tea.
You realize now that all you want is to serve God and in any way He wants.
What could be easier than to do the bidding of God? He looks out for your interest. Your interest is His.
You take your cues from God, but He has only anticipated your own. He is ahead of you, giving you what you would ask for in a little while.
Before you can ask God, He will ask you. And who is the Teacher and who is the student? Who bows down to the other? Whose heart beats? There is no difference.
You become unified with God. You trust your will because it is God's.
God makes you happy. That is next to nothing compared to how happy you make God. What makes God happy? Serving His children.
And how well He serves.
You owe God nothing. He gives you everything. He asks of You that you be happy, with yourself, His Creation. He asks you to enjoy His Creation of you in others as well.
An artist asks that you appreciate his art. The artist has put himself into his work, so when you appreciate his work, you are appreciating him, the artist.
When you appreciate the singing of one bird, God feels favored. When you appreciate someone's voice, God is heartened. When you serve another, God's heart is gladdened. When you fulfill your purpose, God is grateful.
So what is there for you to do but be who are which is the love of God?
God sent His love onto earth so it would return to Him.
Love is the magnet.
Love is the truth.
Love is joy.
God's love lights the world.
All love is your own. All love belongs to everyone. Love is everyone's.
Who can explain love? Not I. Who can explain the magnificence of God and His Creation? No one.
But love and God's creation of it can be enjoyed. God's creation bursts forth in joy, and joy meets joy as love meets love, and there is vitality on earth, and is God's, and this is God.
Hallelujah for God. Nice to know you, God. Nice to be your child and friend. Nice to be Mother Divine, and nice to be Gloria, and nice to be alive on earth, catching the gifts of love that God sparkles on earth for His children, the gifts happy to be yours.
And in the Name of Love, I stop this writing but not the love that is God's gift to all.
Gloria and Friends:
I don't even know whom I'm writing to now. I feel that something special happened in the Godwriting tonight. I do not know what it is. Did my heart open more? Did I become closer to God? What happened? What is happening? How did this happen, whatever it is?
I am feeling like I am God's gift to the world. That isn't conceit; it is fact; each of us is God's gift to the world. Each of us.
I'm not sure I can stop writing to go do my meditation with the group. I just want to stay here in bliss. Can there be more bliss?
And this bliss is not connected to events. It is connected to God's love. This bliss is God's love. That is what bliss is.
My name is God's Love. All are named God's Love. Not God's Love 2,3, or 4 but God's Love.
God's Love succors me. God's Love is mine and yours and God's. There is no difference. All love is One.
Who is writing here now? Is it me? Who is it?
I have the thought that it is Paul, my spiritual father. Is it?
It is God's Love writing.
Is Paul here? Yes. And Maida? Yes. And are you here, Mother Divine? Yes. And are You here, God? Yes.
And where are we? Everywhere.
Is this all of us talking?
Some of it is. Some of it is you alone, Gloria. We can say this is Gloria and Friends.