February 12, 2015

• Communications from God and from guides

• Love is to be shared in life and not just in the remembrance of life

• In giving love, it is received

• Vulnerability is a state of great strength

God speaks to each of you through the loving heart that we have referred to. God speaks, but it is up to each of you to find your own ways of hearing. God speaks to one who is filled with sadness, but God also speaks to those who rejoice and are filled with unabridged gratitude.

In speaking, God does not use words in very specific ways. It is different from human speech. It is a speech of awareness. It is a speech of presence. It is a speech of light, and above all, it is a speech that transmits only love.

Your guides speak to you in a different form. For those of us who are part of the system, the experience, the process of guidance, we communicate with you in ways that are most appropriate for each of you. Our communication of love is a reflection of God’s expression of love. Our communication is not in lieu of but is serving to clarify, to illuminate what your individual souls crave as part of their spiritual development. You hear words such as you experience at this moment, but our function as guides is such that while we may speak words, they are heard according to your own needs. They are heard according to your own language, your own culture, your own experiences, your own paths of development.

God speaks and we take that light and focus the energy in very specific ways for you to grow and to evolve. What we say can change meaning from time to time. Each of you has read these communions, interpreting them in a particular way that has resonance for you now. And yet in the past you have returned on occasion to reread and in so doing find new meanings. The words are the same and the impact changes. Two people hear the same words and experience them very differently. This is what we as guides devote our lives to. It is for you that we provide an energizing presence that both transmits and reflects God’s presence. Your lives are strengthened by your efforts to comprehend, to find meaning.

Consider just human life. You grow in your own lives physically, emotionally, spiritually. You grow in strength, you grow in perception. The growth is constant. You become stronger and more perceptive even without a direct awareness of guidance. But as you slowly become aware of our place on your spiritual paths, that growth that you experience expands manyfold and carries you in significant ways from where you are to where you will arrive—namely becoming pure love. Your growth therefore encompasses matters of the physical and also matters of spirit.

We do not see you as physical entities. We only see what is permanent. We only see what has ultimate value, and that is your capacity for being loving. All human beings can express love, but not all human beings understand the implications of that expression and the breadth of what love can become. We as your guides are dedicated to giving you a broader vision of the love that you can give and the nature of the love that you can receive.

You spoke much as a group about life and death, the passage from one to another state, and you’ve reflected on previous opportunities you’ve had to explore the gifts of another as they change from human to spirit energy. Part of that exploration is expressing what it is that is of great value in another, but it is also common that an expression of that recognition is seldom shared with the individual whom you honor and remember and cherish. What a benefit it can be in your growth as a loving presence to feel moved to share with those who are central to your lives why that is so—telling others why you love them, sharing with another why someone is such a presence in your lives.

When you have memorial services, it is of course important to share the experience with one another, why someone has been so special, but it is even more impactful to express your feelings to another while they still share your path. So often one appreciates another and yet fails to express that. But when you express communally the impact of an individual who has joined us, it may unify the group, but it may deny the individual, while in human form, the acknowledgement of worth, of value, of love that is felt.

You have many whom you love, but how often do you acknowledge it to another? That acknowledgement is an expression of love, is an expression of the heart. It is tragic at times that some cultures tend to restrict such expression, but part of their evolution of soul is the change that takes place when one becomes more open to an expression of love.

It is of course important to feel the love of which we speak. Both parties benefit when that love is expressed, not just felt, but shared. That sharing can be in word, in deed. The deed may be simply being present, being supportive of another. We do not limit this expression to the popular culture definition of loving. Of course that is one means of expression, but it is for each of you to find your own ways of making it clear to another that they are loved, for it is in their benefiting that you also are enriched in spirit.

Life as you all acknowledge is precious. All life is precious. The life of every human being is precious. Every individual needs and deserves love. There is no human being that resists being loved by another. It is not the resistance to being loved that is an issue, rather there may be a resistance to how it is expressed, and that is certainly part of your own paths to figure out how to share love with another. It does not have to be labeled as love. The sharing can just be by what you do, not by what you say. But it is nevertheless essential that another know of the love you feel.

Move beyond the tributes at a memorial. Let them become guiding principles of how you live your lives with others. In doing this you are affirming all others. You are upholding a commitment to the value of everyone. You are giving meaning to the lives of another, not just your own.

Love is to be given, but it is also to be acknowledged when received. We speak so often of the necessity of being vulnerable, but this vulnerability is not a state of weakness. On the contrary, it is a state of great strength, because in being vulnerable you are allowing yourselves to be open to the presence of others. In that openness you may experience criticism, but you also are being open to the expression of love. By shielding yourselves from criticism you are shielding yourselves from the expression of love offered by others.

It is love that nourishes the soul, but it is a love that is both offered and received. If you offer love to another and another exerts energy blocking the love, then the communication between both is less than it could be. For love to work, be active in your receptivity as well as your generosity. Love is to be given, and love is to be received. Love is to be expressed, and love is to be heard and felt.

It sometimes requires much thought on your part to engage in communication that expresses love, for how do you express love to someone who has created great harm to others? You know you must love all, but how do you express it? That can require much thought, much prayer, much hope, much patience. But in the effort that you make to find grounds for becoming loving, you are in that process nourishing your own soul and the soul of another. Love is the nourishment, and it is love that is given; it is love that is received. Be open in your efforts to express love, and be open in your vulnerability to experience the love that is offered by others.

Love ultimately is the most honest expression possible between two people. It is honest because in its purest form it is not about self. It is about other. You must be receptive to love, but love ultimately is an energy that must be given, and in the giving it is received. Have faith in your ability to give love without worry about how it is received, for you can never stand in the shoes of the person who receives the love you express. You can never know the impact of the love you offer.

Love is to be shared in life and not just in the remembrance of life. Services that are a memorial to others are important because they emphasize the power and the presence of love, but recognizing that power and presence carries with it the opportunity to express it directly to the person and not merely to the memory.

We love you. We express our love for you because of who you are, not because of who you were. Our love is an active expression, and it is our hope and our prayer that in our presence that active expression can be carried on further by you—to your neighbor, to someone with whom you work, to family, to complete strangers, to people you have never seen and never will. Your love can bridge that divide with grace and with light.

We bless you in the love you can give. We bless you in the love you can receive. And we bless you in your capacity to express the love that you feel.

Amen.