Take heart for tomorrow. Do not regard tomorrow as that which is always just beyond your grasp. Believe that God's tomorrow in this case is going to be made into God's today, and that you are protected and cared for in a way which escapes your imagination entirely.
It is necessary again and again to give a reminder as to the future. It is strange to those in Spirit that sorrow and pain, both of which you shrink from, has such a power over your mind and on your outlook on life. From a human nature point of view that which is unpleasant is instinctively put as quickly as possible out of mind and memory. You reverse this rule and it is not easy to turn it back into what it should be and must be before happiness can be made your own.
Try and see things more, not only from the spiritual, but also from the practical and the common-sense point of view. That which is unpleasant should not have first place. In the ordinary things of everyday life those which lack beauty are relegated to some dark corner where they do not show, or else are discarded altogether. You do not take your worst possession and give it the place of honour.
Do not run away with the idea that God does not understand how this has come about. To your physical mind most of the incidents of your life come under this grade, and it seems to you that "possessions" in its rightful sense, which is something which the heart and mind desire, have not come your way or, if they have, have drifted on again beyond your reach.
God and the Spirits never forget this, but to Him the whole aspect of your life is as different as could be. You, bound by physical thinking, naturally take a physical view of these things. Those who go straight to the spirit see so many possessions, so many of God's good gifts, that it is always with a sense of surprise that those in the Spirit World revert to your view of the barrenness of the land. The Spirits have never forgotten what physical thinking and the thoughts of the physical mind are like. Not in any sense there could be.
So readjust your attitude in regard to sorrow and the gifts of the spirit. Banish from your environment that haunting grey figure of sadness, remove yourself from the many folds of the garment which it wears and stand free, ready to be enrobed in that which belongs to you as a right; the robes of joy and of faith justified and made perfect!
Get out of the old ruts of thinking and start another train of thought. Think in regard to the capacity for growth, which is humanity's rightful heritage as children of God and heirs of Everlasting Life.
It is not easy for finite minds to think of the journey of the soul without serious misgivings. It seems such a very long journey and the strength available so feeble and already waning before the first portion is overtaken.
Although God can understand that point of view, it should not come into your reckoning at all. At every stage of the journey of the spirit renewed weapons and renewed armour are provided. Your Heavenly Father does not overlook the smallest detail that will bring to His children the help and the aid that they require.
Go back on your very early childhood, to those days before trouble and sorrow had any meaning to your baby mind. It was with zest that you set about your play, that you built your make-believe palaces and that you created things of beauty for the future.
Physical life is but one stage, as you have been told before. When a child enters into the earth life it comes fully equipped with the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Because the body may not be perfect from a physical point of view that does not imply that the gifts of the Holy Spirit have, in that case, been withheld. The lack of anything, or the weakness of the body, seems to be taken by you as something that God has overlooked to give.
But take any child at its play. Weariness of the soul, reluctance towards physical life; these are unknown. Watch the toddler as they try to walk, there is joy in the achievement and ambition to do better!
So it will be when this life of yours is ended and you emerge into that which is of the spirit. You will find this and much more will be worked out, to your amazement. The moment the hold of the body is relinquished, with those who have made the smallest effort towards better things, the joy and the wonderment are so great that even the biggest troubles are entirely swamped by that which they have acquired.
Do not confuse this. When your loved ones come back into the physical body of another, for the time they take on the capacity of the physical mind for remembering that which is best forgotten. It is in itself rather a dreadful experience because there is the contrast of their conditions now, which makes that memory appear even worse than the event was at the time. It is hard to make you understand. They indeed share in your life and in your worries, but all the time the joy is there, because that is their own possession. When the soul has started to grow, pain and suffering lose their significance, and become stepping-stones to greater joy and peace and understanding!
Those who are anxious should get somewhere near to the ideal, and there are an enormous number who intend to do this whatever the cost, suffer it is true. But they have got the sight and that makes all the difference! At the present moment the spirit within you sees and knows what it is all about, but your mind is bound and so you suffer altogether out of proportion to the blows that strike.
Some have been inclined to shrink from that which lies Beyond, almost as much as they shrink from what the past has held. Struggle it may be and struggle it must be until self and imperfections are overcome. But joy is so closely bound to the pain that the pain is taken just as the easiest way of gaining the joy. These are conditions utterly beyond your understanding, and it is impossible to convey in that misused word "joy" the harmony, the love, and the tenderness which is in such abundance on the Spirit side.
You will find as you go on that each stage of the journey of the spirit will not bring more weariness and more shrinking from pain. Every milestone passed will show you more hopeful, more courageous, more able to throw back the darts of the evil, and with that strength of heart and mind which is a direct gift from God to those who wish to climb.
Once more think on the lines that God would have you think, and know that the weariness, strain and struggle, which so often are apparent in your life at this moment are going to give place to better conditions altogether. It will be with new hope and fresh energy that you will continue the work which you have begun for the Master. What applies to your physical life is going to be shown in a greatly enhanced degree once the body is laid aside. Weariness, sorrow, misgiving, and the chill of heart and mind; these and many other burdens shall be left behind and will fall back on to the earth to which they rightly belong.
The spirit is always young, courageous, and hopeful; longing forever to reach that which lies in front. With this instinct comes the power of the Holy Spirit; the impetus which will not only drive you on but will hold you in strength and in security until you have made these things your own for evermore.
The body certainly does give a very unpleasant time. Humankind has gained an entirely wrong impression as to God’s view on this subject. The body is troublesome in many ways but the Spirit works through in spite of it and, later on, that weakness and frailty of the physical shall indeed prove strength and tenacity of the spirit.
Although you do not see much cause for rejoicing, those in the Spirt World not only see cause but thank God hourly that the joy is now being drawn so close. When you get a little farther on, and still more so when you go to the Spirit World, you will look back with amazement at the tests which the shadows threw up in all directions. You will be amazed at the force of evil thrown against so frail a fort, but you will see that the strength of God turned that which was powerful into nothingness, and destroyed even the very destruction that was set about.
It is so difficult for you to get things in their right perspective especially at this stage, but the time is coming when you will be not only amazed but inexpressibly thankful that God, out of His goodness and understanding, brought you through with so little hurt. The hurt has penetrated all your defences, so it seems to you, but in time to come you will see that only the physical mind suffered, and if somewhat badly, even the deepest scars in that will be healed and leave no mark behind.
Trim your lamps a few more times, in this sense; gather your courage together and your trust, and know that those who have called upon the Lord shall see the power of the Spirit demonstrated on either side.
Spring is in the air and yet a day or two ago it was winter, with its bitter chill and discomfort. So will life change for you. The Hand of God is going to be passed over the surface of your life and as it passes joy shall be left behind!
God is Love in a way entirely beyond your comprehension, but God is Love, and His Love covers all things, reveals all things, and gives all things. When you have said that there is no room left for regret, or grieving, or looking back; only faith in the future and joy in the gift is so given.
© The Greater World Christian Spiritualist Association 2025
All rights reserved. No parts of this message may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of The Greater World Christian Spiritualist Association.