What is it that you want to hear?

You fear to say, "Truth, God", because you don't want to hear what you don't want to hear. You fear that the Truth about you is not so good. You are afraid you will receive a poor or failing grade. But I do not give them. Man does enough of that. Man does too much of that.

The Truth is not to be afraid of. The Truth settles your heart; it does not disturb it. But you hold yourself up to standards that you could better meet if you did not make them into commands.

As a child, you may have been going to a party, and your mother tells you to sit up and not to spill anything. You already had every intention of sitting up and not spilling anything, but somehow with the command, you are frozen, and what was easy for you to do — easy when you didn't have to relegate yourself to it — suddenly descends on you from somewhere else and therefore it becomes hard to do. And so you learned to command yourself in regard to too many things that you have no need to. You make unnecessary cautions and demands.

You write a prescription for yourself, your demeanor, your actions, your thoughts. And then at some point you may say: "To heck with it. This is too hard."

Playing a role IS too hard. The thing is: there is no role for you to play.

You don't need a prescription. A prescription sets limits, and limits aren't good for you, and you're not good at them. I don't ask you to be perfect or imperfect. You are beyond regulations. You are beyond anything the world asks of you. I ask that you be who you already are. To do that, you have only to honor the beautiful being that you were made to be and are. You tense up when you think you have to be someone or something else or meet an impossible standard. You rack your brains to find yourself guilty when, all the while, you are your own sovereign. I gave you possibilities, not impossibilities.

You are already My child, and I say you are good. You are not shoddy. But when you tell yourself you have to be this or that superlative goodness, you feel unworthy to the task and defeated ahead of time. Sometimes you would rather not try at all because you carry a history of defeat, and you keep referring to it. Put it down. Cast it aside. Don't read it anymore.

I give you a fresh card. Every day, a new one. It is not a running tally. I have already written in your name and your grade. I wrote your name as "My Beloved". I wrote, not that you passed, but Surpassed. And under comments, I wrote: Promoted to the next day. There is nothing you have to achieve. All you have to do is be here.

The name of your school is Glory. The curriculum is Joy. And all you have to do is to begin to be what you truly are. It is easy to be you. It is hard to be someone else. You are what I say. You have nothing to live up to but what you are. What is hard for you is to remember who you are, and so I remind you. Look for the reminders of who you are. I leave them everywhere. Look for them, and you will see them.

Let the sun pierce your heart. Let newness greet you. All is before you. And you are before you. The goodness and beauty you seek are yours. What is there for you to do but to reveal them. Reveal the truth of you now. I set it before you. See it now.