Beloved Children, when, try as you may, you do not feel love in your heart, and you cannot make the feeling arise, you well know that it is not by dint of will that love comes to take its rightful place. Love will reenter. When ego departs, love enters. Nonsense is gone, and love enters.

In the interim, while love has not risen, and your heart feels bleak, then let good manners substitute for love. This is not being false. This is being true to yourself. Lack of manners is not the truth of you. So, while you wait for love to enter, give courtesy. That is the least you can do. Conduct yourself as a lady or gentleman. And if that seems too far away from you, too hard or obscure to do at this time, then make sure that you are not unladylike or ungentlemanly. That will do. That will tide you over. That will keep you from starting a war.

What does it mean then that you would at least not be unladylike or ungentlemanly? It means you would not call names. You would not raise your voice. You would not insult. You would not publicly declaim. You would not leave unkind messages.

And if unkind thoughts persist in inserting themselves, then you would bless your unkind thoughts and ask them to fly away like birds and not peck at your heart any longer. You would ask them to nest somewhere else. You would kiss them goodbye and see them fly off like gulls looking for another sea. New thoughts will come to take their place.

Beloveds, when your heart is struck with the bullets of retaliating thoughts, or your heart is struck dumb with pain from another’s lack of concession to you, then thank the ones from whom you took offense for pointing out to you the error of your ways – not the error of theirs, but yours.

Your first error is to take offense. Whether offense was intended or not, you took it. You reached your hand in and took it whether it was offered you or not. Let’s face it. You were not an innocent party.

You made a mountain out of a molehill. We are not talking about them or him or her. We’re talking about you. We’re talking about your offense at taking offense and assuming offense was real, assuming that you had been shot at, assuming you had to defend yourself. You are excellent at finding reasons to feel wounded.

You were wounded long ago, and you have been picking at the scabs and nursing old wounds. No other person is responsible for your wounds. They are yours. They belong to you and no one else. You held on to them. You are beholden to no one, and no one is beholden to you. You have been mistaken to think that someone owed you something and that you are to be angry with them for not paying you what you decided they owed you.

Who are you to be angry? By what right do you take anger as your rightful due? When was wrath your privilege, or your right, or your honor? When did service to your ego become more important than service to Me?

When you are angry, you are not serving Me. You are not thinking of Me. You are thinking that you are injured, and so you injure yourself. If you consider yourself a victim, then you perpetuate a crime against yourself. Then you are the aggressor. You can disband yourself. You can leave victimhood. When you do, then that is something you can know you are right about.