Tina to God, Gloria, and Heavenreaders:
I just got back from a week-long family reunion.
The things I have been learning in HEAVEN really worked to keep me out of hell on Earth. I have a very difficult relationship with my mother. We had a hard enough time when I was a child, but since I have been an adult, our visions and free wills always clash. In the past, it has always seemed like a royal battle to see which one would be minimized in order for the other to be maximized.
I am fifty now. This past week at the family reunion is the first time that I have been peaceful co-existing in my mother's presence. I have learned in HEAVEN that it is no more my business to change my mother into a happier person than it is her business to change me. I could allow her to be who she is with all her control issues. I didn't believe I had to DO something about her in order to make it more heavenly here on Earth. I didn't believe I had to DO anything about her in order to be happy myself. I found that I am capable of ignoring her attacks and manipulative dramas.
It hardly even came up, but on the few occasions when I felt the stirrings of the old familiar judgments heating up inside me, I went immediately to the God-given reminder that ALL the circumstances are passing by like the scenes outside the window of a moving train. That INSTANTLY allowed me to remain neutral long enough to let it pass. It freed me and allowed me to move on to something enjoyable rather than engaging with her fixation on the unpleasant.
This may seem like a small step. For me, this child of God, this is a very giant leap forward. I am starting to believe that I can love my mother without liking her when she assumes the right to move into my personal space. I don't have to move into her personal space in order to create some for myself. I experienced very directly that it is only my mental focus and my choice of behaviors that affect my feelings. It is truly not her behavior at all which has the power to darken my outlook. No matter how loud and belligerent she became, I was able to focus on myself and what I was wanting rather than on her and what she wasn't wanting. I am starting to experience that I can look up; I can think about Heaven. I felt very honest. I didn't behave as if I were liking her invasions, but I didn't feel any need to invade her space in order to have some of my own.
This new honesty replaces my old attempts to shrink small enough that she wouldn't find any reason to attack me. No matter how hard I tried, I never got small enough. I always used to come away from her feeling like I had been a piece of tin foil put through a trash compacter. Now I can realize how I did this to myself. Thank You, God, for helping me realize that she has the right to be as miserable as she wants to be. And thank You that I know I don't have to join her there, or to attack her. I can love each of us more if I just allow us to be different. If that means we aren't terribly close, that's o.k. We can love each other from a distance just fine. Thank You for email!
Thank you for Heavenletters!
God to Tina:
Welcome, dear Tina. Welcome to the land of love and vision and understanding and acceptance. Welcome to Heaven.
You are a testament to Me, and I accept your testament. You and I are on the dance floor of life, and we commit a waltz. We dance high, and we dance low, on the wood floor and on the banks of Heaven, but all the time it is Our dance, and We swing together, partners who twirl and uplift each other and hold each other loosely as We perform Our dance of life. All watch us.
And so We dance. And so We are joined. There are many on the dance floor, and yet, at the same time, there is only you and I. The others are a beautiful mirage because the ultimate realization is that you and I are the only Ones dancing or not dancing. We are all the people who watch Us, and We are the watched and watchers all.
Your mother wears a costume on the dance floor. It is a disguise. She is not able to take it off, but you can see past the disguise. You know there is only you and I, you and I, you and I on the dance floor of life.
You can love your mother without effort. Love is not lovey-dovey. Love is the embrace of freedom. It is saying to your mother: "Dance the dance you wish. I dance with God. Your individuality and mine are but a fleeting moment, merely a reflection, not a true image, of dancing with God. God and I do a waltz. You choose a step of your own. Misstep if you wish. It is your dance. Dance it as you will. You, too, one day will find yourself in God's arms, where I am. You will notice Whose arms are around you, and then you will know Who you are. Meanwhile, I dance my one dance with the One God, and I am dancing for you too."
Tina, now We dance in Heaven, for you dance in your truth. Angels are clapping. I am beaming. Rejoice, rejoice for Tina. Leaves are swaying in the rhythm of the universe, and the birds sing, and the sky is and sun is and stars are, and Tina dances with Me.