Solemnity and sadness have nothing in common. You are getting very close indeed to sacred things. You must prepare yourself in every way you can, so that you may have that sense of perfect happiness which, it seems to you, has been promised so often and is apparently forever beyond your reach. What has been said and promised is but as a drop in the ocean compared with that which awaits the faithful and those who have prayed for courage to endure!
Take comfort in the thought that the past is soon going to become meaningless to you. It will seem as nothing more than an unpleasant dream, and when the sleeper wakes and feels the warmth of the sun upon them they will cry "It is day!" and the night is forgotten in the glory of the morning.
Peace will be yours, child of strife and of sorrow; child now of Light and achievement. God grants that you may be able to take in something of what is said, that you may realise something of what lies before you, and that the knowledge of this may stir your heart and mind so that you will indeed arise from the valley of despair and place your standard on the hill of things fulfilled. As you stand there, sending your thoughts on to what lies beyond, the unlimited in doing and being and creating, after setting your staff upon the first hill and leaving it there for all to see, gather up fresh weapons, new strength, and forge on. The time shall come when you shall look back and see all those flags of victory over self, point by point, from the valley up to the hill of Promise, and in that day you will indeed thank God for the great gift of physical existence and the wonderful progress it has allowed you to make.
Consider humanity's relation to God as faithful or unfaithful servants. The word "servants" is familiar to you when put in this form, for in your Bible there are many illustrations of the attitude of the servant towards their Lord and Master. Over and over again on every side encouragements as to your duty towards God are repeated again and again. It always seems that you are so lacking, from the outsider's point of view, that it is necessary to remind you as to the results in regard to this same duty towards your Creator.
But God does not put Himself in the same position as some of the representatives of His teaching would have you think. It is because of the revelation in regard to that which is Love itself that the Spirits have been permitted to be able to speak in this way.
Think then as to God's duty towards His children. To the more conventional this seems to come very close to blasphemy; it almost suggests that criticism were possible of Almighty God and His plans.
There are many who do criticise in this way, but it is only ignorance; ignorance of the most pathetic kind. The Father does not judge them harshly for this twisted idea that they have of Him and His intentions. It is wonderfully comforting to the Spirits when such as these poor heart-broken children, who have suffered because of the thought that God had failed His own idealism, pass over and see a little of what has been and of what will be for evermore. They suffer again, it is true, but with the suffering this time is the overwhelming sense of gratitude that at last they see and they know!
God is so big that it is impossible to hurt His dignity by questioning or criticising His plans. But even the smallest and frailest have the power to inflict anguish on the One who is Love in a sense you cannot understand.
When thinking on a subject like this it is rather difficult to get any clear idea of things as they really are. God's duty towards His children is, in proportion to your duty towards Him, as a mountain to a molehill, and the Father is the last to disclaim this great responsibility, or to shelve it in the way that so many limited minded men and women world have you think. They turn their faces from the obvious and remind the sufferers again and again of their duty and their obligation towards their Creator.
The big view, which is always the God-like view, is the only one to take when you are dealing with a subject which to many is as an open wound that will not close. To those who have tried to love and serve their Master often the question comes. What have they done that they should, apparently, be so forsaken? The Christ does not turn aside from this challenge. God's responsibility towards this world and the many millions of other spheres is unceasing and unlimited, and there is not one child of His that will ever have it in their power to say that at this stage or that, God failed them. When you pass over the past, not just the short fleeting, painful phase of the physical but the long past is unfolded for you to see. Not one child of God, loving or unloving, will ever be able to say that God failed to come up to anything but the highest, grandest and most wonderful Love Divine.
When you come across people who are thinking on these sad lines do not condemn them, do not denounce them; tell them the old story of Jesus and His love. Tell them that God understands so well how hard it is to hold on to faith when the lamp of hope has died down and almost passed out of being.
Tell them that because He is their Father He knows all about everything, and although they cannot see the protection or feel the Wings of power and of peace, these lie around them. In time to come they shall indeed look back on the bitterest incidents of their lives and see, over even the darkest, God's love written so large that it obliterates that which lies behind.
Never fence the question as to God's responsibility to humanity. Take it up bravely and be certain that you are right in answering that God is in command; that His love does not fail. If only the patience is there, even the very evil itself shall be shown to cover up that which is of safety and security; that the darkness was but a veil for Light, and that they were held, guarded, protected, forewarned, from the beginning to the end.
The hardest part of the work for those in the Spirit World is in regard to this same misrepresentation of the Christ; this curious mix-up of an Avenging Deity on the one side with Supreme Love on the other. It is impossible for these two to be united in any sense there could be; they are diametrically opposed to each other! Although evil for evil so often worked out, God has no hand in the punishment; it is humanity’s way of punishing itself.
Those in Spirit often wish they had the power to tear the veil from the minds of those who do wish to honour and portray God to others! If they could only pour into their minds one drop of realisation of what Love is like then it would be more than sufficient to swamp that which hides Him from their sight.
Broadcast it wherever you go; never fail to strike a blow in defence of the Love of God! Affirm with boldness that the Father does not forsake His children, even the most wayward and the most unloving. In the Father's Mind there are many mansions, and if His children could by faith enter into the first then they would know that this is true in a way beyond their comprehension. In the Father's Mind there are many mansions, and what awaits those who have fought and tried to conquer no words, no language can express, because it is of God and God is unlimited.
Cling to this idea of hope and also one of anticipation of the revelation of God's love to come. Remember that although the hand of fate, so-called in your world, stretches a menacing finger far across the lives of many, still the bright light of faith is able to lead the traveller on, out of the forest into the broad highway, and there sorrow ends forever.
Look at it how you may, those who toil in the Garden of the Lord reap a harvest that is never over. Those who spend their time in the barren wilderness of self see the most cherished gifts of the Spirit passing by on either side. As you have sown so shall you reap, and although as yet your field may seem bare, it shall show a harvest and a beauty that will satisfy the most ambitious longings of the spirit within.
To those who have toiled the Light shall come! Those who have held on to the handle of the plough, even though it tore and strained their body, are the tools of the Lord; and because they were tools in the physical world they shall be powers in the spiritual, and bring comfort to many when the body releases them.
Have no misgivings at all. Tell the little sprites of doubt to be silent if they arise. Listen only to the Voice of God within you; pray to be guided; ask to be led into the path that He would have you tread, and know for a certainty that all has been thought of, and included in that is much that you would never dare to ask yourself.
Faith, work and determination; these shall carry you far and these, when you join pass over, shall be found to have brought you not only happiness upon earth but privileges beyond any language to describe; because they have linked you to the Spirit, and the Spirit is of Love, and Love is God Himself.
Stand free from everything and go forward with a cheerful, thankful heart because of the tomorrows to come; when the winter-time of experience will be over and the spring will be ushered in, warming your chilled heart and renewing those who have found the hill so steep.
