Heaven Letter #1602
God
said:
ALTHOUGH YOU ARE TO GIVE without thought of return,
you are not to give too much of yourself away. You are not to make
yourself a slave to others' needs and wants. This is a pitfall. Over-giving
does not serve another well. And it may consume too much of your energy
and leave you depleted and resentful. Perhaps you are expending too
much. What you spend of yourself is not any other person's responsibility.
It's your own. Don't blame them.
I did not tell you to starve yourself in order to feed the world.
I did not say to spend so much of your energy that you have none left.
I did not tell you to sweep everyone's floor and neglect your own.
You have thought of sacrifice as noble. It is not noble at all. Those
who give great gifts to the world do not sacrifice. How prideful that
would be. They are simply doing what they want to do. If they gave
their whole life to caring for the sick and hungry, they were not
sacrificing at all. They did not want to spend their life at parties.
They didn't want to wear beautiful clothes. They did what they wanted
to do. It would have been sacrifice for them to not do what was in
their heart and their happiness to do.
Those you call saints were happy. They were not long-suffering. There
is nothing saintly about suffering. They were doing what needed to
be done and what gave them happiness. If they had not done what they
took in their hands and heart to do, they would have suffered.
So, just like you, they chose joy. To those who are long-suffering
in spirit, then suffering must be their joy. Someone may suffer for
a long time, but that does not make them long-suffering. They do not
turn their suffering into a virtue. They do not ask to be blessed
for their suffering or given accolades.
Saints were not faint of heart. Or, if they were, they ignored the
faintness and went ahead anyway.
Do not think of saints as martyrs. They made the choice they most
wanted to make. If the world belittled their choice or disdained them
for it, that was the world's choice. Think of those whose loving lives
were forcibly taken, not as martyrs, but as heroes. It's blessed to
be a hero. A hero has courage. Dubbing someone a martyr does not do
honor. Do not set martyrdom before you as a worthy career.
Better to strum a guitar than work your fingers to the bone. Do not
bend your back over for others so much that you cannot stand upright.
Give and give as you are able. But do not be self-sacrificing. If
you desire to sacrifice, sacrifice selfishness, greed, envy, dismay
etc. but not yourself. Let old ideas and claims go up in smoke, but
do not burn yourself on an altar. You are brave enough already, beloveds.
Do unto others as you would have others do unto you. Would you really
ask others to wear themselves out?
This is such a balance we are talking about. There are those in the
world who are too selfish, and there are those who regard themselves
too little. Regard yourself just right. Sleep at night. Rise in the
morning. Do all the good you can do, and do it well with joy rather
than servitude.
Serve Me well by honoring all My children. You are one of My children,
so that includes you, too, beloved. That includes you too.
Heaven
Letter #1567
God
said:
WHAT MADE YOU THINK THAT YOU WERE NEVER TO BE DISCONTENTED?
What made you think you were always supposed to be pleased, noticed,
adored? that life was supposed to fall at your feet and do your bidding?
True, the world is your oyster. It is also your shell to crack.
If everything in life presented itself to you as you would like with
no more than a flick of your wrist, you would not be so happy as you
think.
You are learning to give up resistance. The world pulls you in its
tension and stretches you out and makes you resilient. The world expands
you. And so you grow inch by inch. It is not a terrible thing that
you do not always get your way. Whatever is, that is your way. You
are making your way in the world.
The world may be disjointed, but you are learning to enjoin, and in
the process, enjoy. The world is like bone with a lot of sinew, and
you are wresting the meat from it. The world does not serve you your
meat all cut up in bite-sized pieces. Sometimes the world is more
that you can chew, yet what can you do but keep chewing?
This is the relative world We speak of. For the divine aspect of life,
there is no tension. There is nothing for you to learn but to let
go of whatever build-up you have fashioned around it.
The world is your playing field. In terms of the Divine, there is
nothing to develop but your awareness of it. Awareness is not concentration.
Awareness is letting go of protuberances that obstruct your view.
Your view is your awareness. In the world, you learn to look outward.
In awareness of Being, you learn to look within.
The time will come where there is no perceived difference between
within and without. You will see the Silence and Light just as deeply
in the world. It will all blend. Golden light will enwrap you, and
then the world will be as staunch as you would have it be. It will
not matter to you so much, the infallibility of the world, for your
view will be infallible.
It
will be as if you sit down to a grand feast. All the foods served
are not your favorites. But then, to your delight, whatever is served
turns out to be delicious! You discover that it is your palate that
has repositioned itself, grown its wings as it were, and you, the
taster of the food, have learned to taste! You relish all that comes
before you. You relish all the flavors. You become a great connoisseur
of great life. You do not grumble any longer. You enjoy what is.
If the butter is in pats or melted, it is still butter. If the food
is raw or cooked, it is still food. Colors will take on new color.
You will love them all, the murky and the clear.
You will be a delighter in life. You will be delighted, and you will
delight.
And so the world that has stretched and exasperated you, will perform
for you, and it will be a performance as never before because you
have come to love life. Where there was darkness, now is light. Where
there was disfavor, now is favor. Where there was heartache, now good-heartedness
is restored.
You stand in the same place, but where you stand has risen along with
you. The world rises with you. You pull up the world. It no longer
pulls you down. This is a friendly arrangement, no struggle. Tautness
has left, and there is life, supple, pliant, and ever extending itself
into the realms of Heaven, simply because of your vibrant awareness
that Earth is rising, and you are the riser.
©
Gloria Wendroff, 2005
Gloria
Wendroff always
loved reading, writing, and inspiration, but she never gave much thought
to God - let alone dreamed that a time would come when she would hang
on to every word of the Best Storyteller of All. Not until after forty-two
years of wandering did she become conscious of a desire for God. Then
it was another twenty more before she began to hear a whisper. Now,
looking back, she can see a tiny hint here or there but nothing to
prepare her for what was to come.