Tina to God:

Dear God, the recent focus about putting ourselves first, at least some of the time, is very important for me. Could You please talk to us, in this vein, about saints?

I always thought that saints set the example of serving God through self-sacrifice. It always seemed to me that putting others first was a big part of what made them saints.

Now that I am coming more and more into consciousness about abundance, it is seeming to me that giving and giving is a way to experience the truth of Your caring for us. The more I am able to break through my fears of lack, and to act on faith by giving fearlessly, the more I am growing in awareness of Your abundance, because I do not ever experience lack as a consequence of giving. I only seem to draw the experience of lack by behaving in ways which testify to the belief in it.

Week by week, I gain more courage to behave in disbelief with regard to lack. In my mind, it seems as impossible as walking on water, but I do seem to be experiencing it.

How does this fit in with putting myself first, when giving seems to be my way of increasing my belief in Your care and support for me and everyone else at the same time?

Dear God, how would you define saints for Heavenreaders?

I don't know if I am making myself clear. Somehow, at this point in my understanding, having faith in Your infinite abundance, believing in oneness, and needing to put ourselves first seem to imply contradiction.

Thank you, Gloria, and thank You, God. And thank you to all the Heavenreaders who are keeping these questions coming.

I can't get too much on this subject since it flies in the face of almost everything I have been taught, especially about parenting.

God to Tina:

Dear Tina, you ask a question just at the juncture in which it is needed. And you asked it. Not someone else.

A true saint never sacrificed. He or she did exactly what they wanted. They did not think: "I will give up something for this other person or this cause."

They thought: "I am filling my heart with joy. I am doing what at this moment is what I want to do."

They were not saintly in order to be known as saints. The true saints did not suffer pain in order to show how saintly they were. They did not suffer pain. Their attention was on Me, and if they suffered at all, they suffered joy. If their attention had been on pain, they would have felt it, but their attention was on Me.

There are many unknown saints. Fathers. Mothers. They do not sacrifice. If they sacrificed, there would be a little twist in their giving. There would be a prong of demand and expectation. There would be an outer recognition of some kind that they were trading their good acts in exchange for something, maybe to even say to themselves: "What a good person am I."

When a mother gets up at night to nurse her baby, she may prefer that the baby didn't cry and that she could sleep, but she is not sacrificing to get up and nurse her baby. It would be sacrifice for her to stay in bed and deny her baby. She is doing what she wants to do with love of God and baby and herself.

We come back to: how something is done, for what motive, in what spirit.

The mother who gets up in the wee hours of night for the baby does not feel she is sacrificing. Perhaps it looks like that from the outside, but We all know by now that what is done in love is not sacrifice. Not a show of love, but in love.

So we come back to Truth.

And now we also come back to judgment.

The world, of course, gives mixed messages. It says that to give is Godly, to put others before you is Divine. It also says to put #1 first.

I would like to make a distinction between caring for yourself and taking advantage of another. Taking advantage of another is selfish. It is controlling. It is more like putting someone else last.

Letting someone else take advantage of you is also a form of denial or control.

You don't want to be selfish, and you don't want to be taken advantage of.

Give what you want to give. Give what you are able to give with a free heart. Give what your state of consciousness allows you to give. Have awareness of giving, and don't clean yourself out emotionally. Give My love, and love yourself as well.

You have a guidance system within you. It is not your mind.

When Gloria seemed to think: "If I'm good, this person of course can stay over when she wants", her guidance system, delayed as it was, said: "Something isn't quite right here." And so she had self-recrimination.

It is judgment to think that giving makes you better. But who is to say that giving makes you better? Or that you are better when you have given? When it is truth, yes. When it is truth.

Have you seen a mother force her young child to share a toy? Was that giving? The child was sharing against his will. Against the will is not giving.

Aspire to what you believe in, and listen to your heart.

Tina, We will talk more about this tomorrow.

* * *

Diane to Gloria:

What a wonderful reply from God yesterday. I cried, I laughed — especially at the part about waiting with some trepidation for His response. I need time to integrate this and then I will share a letter or another question.

Gloria to God:

Dear God, the person who stayed over my house that night when I wasn't really honest or too happy about it, appeared at my door. She had a rental car, and needed to drop it off and get a ride to her car at a service station.

She came to my door the minute I had come in from grocery-shopping. It was 2:30; I hadn't had lunch, and I was starving. Without premeditation, I said, "I've got to eat. Can you come back in an hour, and I'll be happy to take you."

She came back in an hour, and I was happy to take her. I really was.

What I think is, if I had given her a ride right away, and I had stayed hungry and put her need for a ride ahead of mine to eat, then I would not have been so happy.

God:

You would not.

You would have sacrificed.

And you would have resented it.