God said:

There is no need to strive to be imperfect, now, is there? It seems quite natural on Earth to not be perfect, wouldn’t you say? Striving to be perfect may wear you out. Perfect by whose standards, anyway?

You can intend to be many things. You can intend to be perfect, and then you have to forget about it! You can’t wrap yourself up in your intention, for then you hold on too tight. You have to let go so that your intention has breathing room. Grasping isn’t the way. Letting go is the way. Sit back and look forward to what today will bring.

Of course, you can work your head off to be perfect. Then, in addition to calling yourself a mistake-maker, you may also call yourself a failure!

Which would you choose, beloveds, perfection or happiness? Choose happiness. If you don’t feel happy at this time, then do something nice for others. You could, perhaps, accept people as they are. Acceptance seems to be hard in the world because of high standards.

Isn’t it wonderful to have high standards, you might ask?

There are two answers - Yes and No. It isn’t wonderful when, with high standards, you look down on others who don’t meet your fine standards. What is more important, high standards or love? You know the right answer here all right. Love is definitely a form of acceptance. Acceptance is like a welcome mat in front of your door.

A welcome mat does not say:

“This mat is only for people whose shoes are immaculate.”

God said:

My children cry out to Me how unhappy they are. You, yourself, as a matter of fact, might say:

“Dear God, so many times You get my hopes up. I hear about levels of consciousness, yet no matter what level I seem to be on, I return again and again to despair. The promises You seem to make, forgive me for saying, do not always hold up. No matter what level of consciousness I seem to be at – and I have grown, definitely, I have grown – I am disenchanted once again. I am lonely. Loneliness pursues me through the days that turn into my life. God, do You forsake me? Have You forsaken me?”

Dear Child, a thread of you knows I have not. You may not know where to turn, yet you inevitably turn to Me. You do know enough to know that I hold the Keys to the Kingdom. There is one Key, and it is Love, and I offer it to you. Will you receive it?

Now, let Me say kindly what I am going to say.

Listen to yourself, beloved. You are disgruntled. You are disgruntled with Me. I am not disgruntled with you. I do not find you lacking. You find Me lacking. You find yourself lacking. Loneliness is rampant on Earth. Are you saying that I create your loneliness?

God said:

“‘Til the ends of time” is a lovely expression, rather sweet or bitter-sweet, nostalgic. All the same, time never was, yet time is something you rue for its passing. Gone are the days of yesteryear. Now there are merely images of people that you can’t forget yet who are no longer on Earth whom you do not truly remember, oh, maybe a patch here and there. You almost can’t conjure them up any longer. They meant so much to you, and you may still miss them so much at the same time as they seem to have gone away leaving you behind to go it alone.

How can it be that your dear mother and father are no longer here? How can it be that you are now older than they were when death whisked them away, yet death is not real. Simply the ones you loved cross a river that you have to wait to cross until it’s your turn.

The river they crossed is more like a rainbow, you understand. There is no forging across a rainbow. There is light rising, perhaps the way dew rises to the sun. Another day, the dew returns. In this way, life is like a dance, this turn, that turn, circle left, circle right, and then you meet yourself and bow or curtsey.

Yes, life in the world is like a dance, and you never know when your dancing on Earth ceases. You may have been doing somersaults all your life, and then, one day, you will leave your somersaulting behind and you go off into the wild blue yonder.

God said:

Returning to the topic of changing people, I would like to add that you adore someone and you get married. So far, so good, and then you see fault in the one you married, and you try to reform your partner in areas that are not yours to take over and remake to suit you. Your desire to make your partner into someone else may hurt your loved one’s heart to the core. No matter how well-intentioned you may be, you may be denying your beloved’s very Being. Who are you to presume to change your loved one’s preferences in life? You may try to take away someone’s very nature. Now We are dealing with the nitty-gritty of life.

When someone is one way, he or she is not another. Each person comes to this world with certain proclivities that belong to the person and not to you. Really, people will change, yet it is not for you to force or speed up change on anyone. In life, you learn what is your jurisdiction, and what is not.

When women go to a spa for a complete make-over, they have chosen to go to the spa. Each person comes into Life on Earth with predilections. Some are quick. Some are slow. Some like solitude. Some are gregarious.

Your friends and loved ones own their lives to live and decide for themselves. Another’s life is not yours to direct. Marriage is not a take-over. You do not want to force-feed another. Nor do you yourself want to be force-fed.

God said:

It really is an affront to try to make people into something they are not. Of course, there can be a question of what someone is or isn’t. I am speaking of when someone is naturally open-hearted, and someone sees the person as too open-hearted. There is also the reverse, where someone is tight-fisted with his heart, and someone else decides that he or she must become warmer. Be wary when you see others as too much something and not enough something else.

There are many things My children want from others that may well not be their place to order. Matters of the heart must be left to the heart.

Because you operate in the world one way doesn’t mean that everyone else must operate the way you do. Be cautious about trying to change other people. It is hard enough for you to change yourself.

Because you are a person who loves to socialize doesn’t mean that everyone has to love to socialize. The world also has need of those people you tag as introverted and perhaps consider inferior.

If someone happens to love wearing bright colors and overwhelms your eyes with too much jewelry, welcome them. If you find you cannot welcome them, then at least don’t judge, condemn, or hassle them.

And if someone is too muted and plain, let them be. You are not meant to be the decider of what other people should or should not be like or appear like.