Gloria to Mother Divine:

Dear Mother Divine, talking about truth, the other day was Jeremy's birthday. I didn't know to the last minute when he came over to install Money 99. I had an extra beanie baby, and asked him what he puts on top of his computer, and would he put a beanie baby there. He laughed, shook his head no, no thanks. "I don't collect beanie babies!"

Mother Divine:

Were you insulted, Gloria?

Gloria:

Not at all.

Mother Divine:

Would you have liked it better if he had said, "Oh, wonderful, a beanie baby. I'll put it on my computer!" Would you not have known it was not truth?

And then you offered to pick flowers for him, and he said no, you understood that flowers make you happy, but not Jeremy. Were you offended?

Gloria:

Not a bit.

Mother Divine:

You did not read anything into it. You took it for the simple truth it was.

But you, on the other hand, might have dissembled. If Jeremy offered you a treatise on computers in fine print, you might have said, "Wonderful," and denied your true feelings.

Gloria:

But what if I had wrapped the beanie baby and been at Jeremy's party and presented it to him?

Mother Divine:

He would have enjoyed the giving and would have enjoyed other's enjoyment of the beanie baby. He would not have said, "Take it back." That wouldn't have been his truth either.

Gloria:

Karen made an astute point about truth-telling. Often, when someone doesn't want to hear the truth, the speaker picks up that message and says what the other wants to hear. Speak of people-pleasing!

Mother Divine:

All these games going on. Why untruth? What is the perceived need for it?

Gloria:

For harmony? Nancy said how in a marriage, for example, sometimes you just have to overlook and close your mouth.

Mother Divine:

Then that is Nancy's truth.

Gloria:

Sometimes it just doesn't seem worth it to express yourself. Like I have to learn to keep a lot of comments to myself with Lauren. Is that different from not being in my truth?

Mother Divine:

You don't always have to give your opinion. That is different. But when you speak, let it be truth. Listen to your own truth. Know it. Live your truth by not selling yourself short.

Truth-giving is a decision. Make the decision once. "I will be truthful. I will be truthful with myself. I will not kid myself any more. I won't dishonor myself anymore. I will not pretend I am less than I am. I will not pretend anything."

With that decision made, life will shift itself. You will live on a basis of truth. Living truth is a kind of openness. It is not truth predicted, inveigled, prescribed, but looked at. Remember your worth to God.

Gloria:

Yesterday I was going to lie about my age on an application, and then I didn't. Why is that lie so prevalent?

Mother Divine:

In your society, older age is to be disguised. Must you? No. What is the perceived need for the lie? Any perceived need is a trickster. It is a magician with a cape and wand.

Gloria:

Nancy also mentioned how being with someone who is truthful is freeing.

Mother Divine:

That says it all.

Do you want to make up a life or to live it?

Do you want goldplate or solid gold?

Do you want to laugh on the outside and cry on the inside?

Do you want to walk on solid earth or on mud?

Do you want your honor to be a sacrificial lamb sold to the highest bidder?

Do you want peace or havoc?

Do you want the cream of life or a cream-substitute?

Do you seek God or a cardboard figure?

The ego lies. The ego lives lies.

Whatever you think you have to prove with a lie — your honesty perhaps? — it's for ego. Whatever you think you have to be, it is for ego. It is a false premise.

Just be. What you are is good enough. You do not have to buy in to what is offered you in the world. You do not have to be gypped.

Spend yourself like a precious gold coin of rare value. Do not pretend it is a tarnished penny.

You are God's gold. Is there something more?

Gloria to God:

Dear God, what would You like to tell us this morning?

God:

Truth is easy. Lies are effort. You can look at truth. Untruth is nothing to see. Words belie a lie. The relative world is built on lies.

Would you like to eat food or a picture of food?

The energy consumed in cover-ups! When you live truth, there is no cover-up. What is there to cover up?

When you think you must be "realistic", you pander yourself. You let yourself slip away. You live a myth that does not fulfill its promise.

Gloria:

Is it ever all right to settle for something, God?

God:

Know what you are settling for.

Gloria:

When someone works a job he doesn't love, is he settling for something? When someone stays in a marriage that isn't great, is that settling?

God:

You might as well say, If someone stays on earth in a body, is he settling? Having everything the way you want is not the same as living in your truth. Look not for perfection on the outside.

Wherever you are, whatever your situation, you can be true to Me, and that is being true to yourself. You do not always have to be pleased any more than you have to please, but you do not sell gold for a tuppance.

Look to your heart for guidance, not to the world.

Life is to be lived, not planned, not regretted, but lived in truth of who you are and what you are to Me.

Do you let life touch you? Or do you brush it off, keep it away, rebuff it?

Do you pick it to pieces, or do you eat it whole?

Do you look at the ocean, or conjure it, or do you enter it?

There is one real life, and that is with Me. I am in the marriage and at the workplace. I am in you no matter how you dissemble, but dissembling keeps your heart away from Me.

Look at your truth. Acknowledge it, and go on from there.

Come to Me. I am the oasis in the desert. And you are My child. That is truth.