Gloria:
Dear God, I guess that I carry my own pain. As the acuteness of the sense of Ginger's loss subsides, then the pain of distance and forgetting takes over. Is it all a lesson in letting go? If I don't let go, it hurts. If I let go, it's another hurt, as if letting go of the grief is abandoning Ginger. Letting go of pain is its own pain, and it leaves something else to come to grips with.
God:
Suffering comes from thinking things have to be a certain way, as if one thing proves another. Ginger lived on earth. She learned and gave great happiness. You and she shared happiness. Now her soul has returned to Heaven, and, although she visits you frequently, you still believe in lack. You believe in suffering. You think the act of suffering is the act of being alive. You believe that caring can only mean suffering, past, current, or future.
If you believed that loving Ginger meant being happy, even with her body gone, you could stop hurting and try out happiness. If you believed you didn't have to suffer, you wouldn't. If you believed you were worthy of happiness, you would be happy. If you could really believe that your happiness is not dependent on another or circumstances, you would be happy.
Yes, this is the pain of attachment. Two trains run parallel for a while and then they veer off. But one train does not grieve because the other one goes on a different track.
Entitle yourself to kiss Ginger and grief goodbye. They are not synonymous. Ginger was a representation of My love. My love remains, wherever Ginger is. Kiss her physicality goodbye. Keep her love. You are full of it.
Grief is just some kind of salad dressing. It's heavy and oily. It has some kind of tang. But love doesn't need to be seasoned.
Grief is like a dripping gravy, but love doesn't have to be made heavy.
My love doesn't need to be hung with dark draperies.
Carry love lightly. It is not a burden. It is a freeing.
Give it up, Gloria. Give up the holding on to familiar pain. Let it all go. Let go of everything but right now. Right now is what you have. Don't miss right now.
Gloria:
So a lot of what I am feeling is judgment then.
God:
You are judging yourself instead of loving yourself. You have certain ideas, and they hold you back. That is what judgment is made of, ideas that hold you back.
Gloria:
A friend of mine's daughter was married to a man that she loved deeply. He never supported her. He seemed to prefer to have no money, to live by the seat of his pants. If he had money from doing odd jobs, he wanted his wife and now baby daughter to just go travel with him and use up the money. His wife, my friend's daughter, left him because of the non-certainty and lack of financial support. I have the feeling that she would happily go back to him if only he would support her and their little girl.
He comes to visit every now and then and scrounges or sleeps in his car.
I suppose he is like a gypsy, God. You can imagine what we all think of him as a husband and father. I haven't even met him, and I've judged him.
But recently my friend, his mother-in-law, said to me, "But you know what is wonderful about him? He never judges. However someone is, it's all right. He doesn't try to change anyone. He likes everyone the way they are."
So here are his wife, his mother-in-law, his own parents even, and I, all judging him, and wanting him to change. I feel ashamed to be so judgmental.
And I guess we don't know someone because they are or are not the attributes we think they should be. This man could be worth his weight in gold. He could be an enlightened soul. He sure married a good woman and fathered a special little girl.
This one thing, his casualness about money and providing for his family, makes him discounted.
God:
That is just right, Gloria. You don't know who someone is from the outside. Their attributes are their attributes. That's all they are.
Gloria:
And yet it would be very hard to be married to a man who doesn't support you or particularly believe in it. He doesn't support his little girl, though he loves her, and I gather he doesn't have the means anyway.
God:
This beautiful man has taught you a good lesson about judging.
His life is not the proscribed life.
He may not compare to other men. And they may not compare to him.
But no one can say how another should be living his life.
No one can tell the wife to stay with him or leave him.
And not one of you can know what is right.
Gloria:
God, how do we know the difference between a judgment or an observation?
God:
You can tell by your emotional overtones. You can tell if you feel superior or inferior. If you click your tongue and say, "Tut tut," you are judging. If you get some kind of thrill about the observation, you are judging. If you name it good or bad, you are judging. If you name it fortune or misfortune, you are judging. If you are other than neutral, you are judging. Unless you are in pure love, you are in judgment.
To be in pure love, you don't have to do anything. Pure love, by its very nature, is without judgment. Pure love stands alone.
Judgment has a history. Judgment is always from an accumulation of past ideas and opinions. Judgment is not in the present.
* * *
Jona to Heavenletters:
Have to deliver my speech tomorrow, pray for me.
I had a prayer answered today, I got the job I want for this summer, and I'm VERY happy about it!
Bye, Jona, 15
Diane to Heavenletters:
April 6 is a four-card Heavenletter!
Caroline to Gloria:
I haven't told you how sorry I am about Ginger's passing! I know she is frolicking happily in Heaven, and enjoying being with you on a different level. But it is hard to be left behind.
I just read those Heavenletters within the last few days (was more than a week behind), and they were so full of love coming from everywhere. I could really feel it.