Families

SAT., JAN. 4, 1986, 9:17 AM
FARM, STUDY

You are back in your old familiar study after a long but satisfying trip. Your encounters with Me in this teaching/learning mode of Ours were not many, but important. Don’t fail to share those last two Teachings with your sons. And now hear some perspectives on the new year within the context of families.

The experience you just have had is with your family of “blood” relationship and with the wider one of marriage. This is the most traditional referent for the term “family” – children, grandchildren, parents, siblings. For Lenore this was the whole range. For you it was the family of marriage. This has special significance in human relations, for this is the group where there is love and acceptance, even in the face of major differences of various kinds. You wish that there were more accord among family members, but it simply is wrong to let lack of agreement or personal dislikes reduce the love that is for family.

It is the love that is most like Mine for members of the human family. My love does not wax and wane as individuals move away from Me, deliberately or not. I see each one as Mine… each on a path of spiritual development, even as some paths turn clearly away from Me. I know much more about you than you do about yourself… and so it is for each human, for each soul, in whatever realm she/he may be. I have patience, and I see growth, even when it isn’t evident to you.

Thinking in your broadest terms you could consider that your spiritual understandings and commitments now are somewhat different than when you were 30. Hence you can think that each of your sons could see life differently in the future. But will these changes bring them necessarily closer to you? Not necessarily. Yet you have a means to let them know, with some regularity, how you are developing under My guidance. This is more than most parents have.

Looking the other way, it is less likely that the differences between you and Mabel will diminish. I have placed you on different paths for different purposes. As I have told you before, she must have great difficulty accepting some of your understandings, just as you struggle in accepting some of her premises.

But let Me also laud other families of which you are a part. Your Ruminations is creating a family, even more diverse than your “real” family. Yet the letter from David gave evidence that this can have a “joining” quality, which is more powerful and effective than just blood relationship. David recognizes that he is not strong spiritually. Yet this very recognition, combined with his willingness to tell this to you, is evidence of spiritual growth.

Rick is part of this Ruminations family, and also of the family of students who have been especially influenced by you, by way of professional courses and other work in health education. He is a very special “son,” with a spirit ready for growth that you can influence, as no one else can. The list in front of you on this desk is another family, some in each of the others, and some in none but this willingness to write and share some of themselves with you.