Kerry to Gloria:
Dear Gloria,
I am so moved by Lauren and God in Heavenletters. I am touched on many levels. What rang true so loudly are the same issues of abandonment and pain in my own sweet daughter, Traci, and our lives.
Traci's father (my son Michael's too!) was murdered on Traci's fourteenth birthday just one year after she and my Michael had been reunited with him after YEARS of abandonment and pain.
When her father was killed, Traci rejected me and stayed away and lived with her aunt for seven years. She how lives here in Colorado only three miles from me. She is married and has two beautiful little girls who carry such light!
This is a very short version of all of the drama of Life. Forgiveness and growth is an ever-evolving process …I realize I cannot shoulder all of the pain that has come about as a result the death of my children's father and the subsequent death of my son, Michael. It is overwhelming, at times, though…
Also, Traci has experienced the loss of two best friends at very young ages. One of them was her first cousin, Julie…We are very broken-hearted a good part of the time. Traci is very wonderful, and my Love for her is so great. Her pain is very real and has manifested in Juvenile Onset Diabetes. She was seventeen when she was diagnosed, and she is thirty now)…She battles with weight, also. I think it is time to speak to God!
Kerry to God:
Dear God, my dear daughter is in such pain and confusion. She is seeing a therapist for Obsessive Compulsive disorder. I am listening to You, God and thinking about "Being Love" by opening to her, by REALLY listening to her and turning it all over to You, God.
I am in constant awe at the miracles that happen when I ask for better communication…for Harmony, for unconditional Love…My gratitude is so great…
My sadness is great also for what I still perceive as very great loss…The family dynamics run deep and wide, as you know, my beloved God…
I know you told me previously about just "being there" for the hurting ones and leaving the healing up to You…I do know this and acknowledge it on such a sweet spirit level.
Forgiveness has not been easy, but when I look at the faces of my sweet grandchildren and see the eyes of their grandfather, who inflicted such pain on us in this life, reflected back at me…I HAVE NO OTHER CHOICE BUT TO FORGIVE!
Thank You, my sweet and precious God, for always being around, even when I wrote poetry into the night and thought I was all alone and sad…You were There! Thank you for making the little whispers in my ear A SYMPHONY OF ANGELS!
Please whisper your Love in Traci's ear so she will know how deeply she is loved. I know Your blessings will shine down on her and Lauren…
When you told Lauren: "However damaged your heart is, however unfair he has been, whatever he has denied you, he has denied himself more"…the words spoke to my deepest Heart… Dear God, please whisper them into Traci's Heart and assist me in remembering!
God to Kerry:
Dear Kerry, you listen well. You take to heart what I say. Neither you nor Gloria can take on your daughters' pain, nor can Jessica her sister's. And don't worry, I take care of Traci.
Kerry, never mind forgiving your former husband. Forgive yourself, dear one, for choices you made and events that occurred.
Do you see how forgiving is really releasing? Release yourself from the past. You have punished yourself enough.
All that occurred has vanished. Where is it? Where is it located? What is this power it holds over you?
You read a book that had tragedy in it, and now that book is finished.
Say goodbye to the pain. Kiss it goodbye.
It served you well. What a compassionate human being it made you, dear Kerry. What a place it has brought you to.
Pain was a taxi driver that brought you to My door. Tip him, and say goodbye.
What your former husband did, or did not, what his pain was, what his lacks were, have nothing to do with you and your daughter except in your perception.
He lived his life, not yours, and you cared for him and felt his pain and his losses as well as your own and your children's.
That pain is not your torch, Kerry.
It is a burnt-out match.
Toss it away.
The pain is not your banner. It is an old rag.
See it for what it is.
Life did not take the turns you wanted and that are deemed right in your world.
Yet no one owed you anything. You owe no one anything.
Free yourself from debt and trespasses that are not yours. They are not anyone's. Free yourself from the concept of obligation.
Is there part of you, dear Kerry, that sees yourself somehow responsible for your husband's unhappiness?
Are you like Lauren who always thought her father's ways were of her making?
Everyone has the right to follow his own path, no matter how convoluted and uneven. Free them to it.
Free your husband. Deliver him to Me.
Whatever pain your parents bequeathed to you, hand it over.
You no longer need pain.
Forgive your dear son for leaving you, and know he has not. Really know he has not.
Do not abandon yourself, Kerry, except to Me. Do not abandon yourself to pain.
Love yourself as you love those two beautiful granddaughters.
You give them to their future.
Give yourself permission to let go of the past.
The past is nothing but marks in the sand.
The past was a mirage.
I pull you out from the past and put you here right now beside Me.
Come with Me, and not with this burden of pain. Choose Me. Abandon the pain. It is not who you are.
You possess nothing, not even pain, dear light.
Your daughter does not need her pain either.
You think you carry pain, but it carries you.
The pain is a cage that you don't have to stay in. The little gate is open all the while.
Cry your tears, but they are not endless.
They chose you once, but they don't have to choose you now.
They are the dregs of the wine you drink.
Let Me remind you that you are beautiful enough. You have nothing to atone for, apologize for, suffer for, repay, reimburse and so on.
Choose freedom. Free yourself.
You are not the desert.
You are the oasis.
You are not pain.
You are My beloved child.
Pain is not honorable, dear Kerry.
Take it off.
Abandon your pain. It doesn't need you.
Drop it off.
Yes, right now I remove it from you like a mantle from around your neck.
I take the ghost of your pain, and it is gone.
It is does not exist except as you perceive it.
It is nothing but a shadow you cast.
I remove it from each cell of your body.
Pain has been with you a long time.
It is no longer accepted.
You do not own pain, nor does it own you. It has no power over you.
You loved your former husband, and forgive yourself for that, and know that you never owned him.
No one belongs to anyone.
He was My responsibility and his own, certainly not yours.
Free yourself from responsibility towards him.
Free yourself from responsibility for your daughter.
Deep healing will take place in you now.
Reap a new field in life.
Toast yourself every day.
Dream some dreams for yourself.
Let others dream their own.
Look to the sky and the stars, and you will see yourself there.
Look up.
Look big.
Give away the broom with which you have swept the past again and again.
Your true name is Joy.
Welcome yourself. Treat yourself the way you treat others.
Treat yourself to a new cup of joy.
Break that pitcher of sorrows.
Start a new pot of coffee. Open a new bottle of wine.
I assign you to lightness and joy.
Cry your tears, and then get up. Wipe your tears, love them, and enter Heaven on earth.
Come fly with Me, and carry Me as I carry you.
How light you are.
You are My light.
I know not sorrow, for I know only truth.
You and your husband are the same beloveds to me.
Judge no one guilty, least of all yourself.
You have served your sentence of pain.
Now I write Joy on your forehead, more joy than you have thought of.
It is yours. I give it to you.
Accept it, for joy has been seeking you.