June 3, 1999

• Growth is achieved when imbalance seeks to become balance

• Healing defined

• Welcome illness as an opportunity to grow

God joins each of your souls together along with the souls of all humanity. But in your gathering at this time, you are acutely aware of God’s presence and the need for that presence. It is in your reaching out to one another and in your praying toward God that you are indeed truly united into a single being, a single entity.

Each of you has been touched recently by the need for healing, either for yourself or for others. It is this quest for healing—spiritual, physical—that is a recognizable bond connecting each to the other. The need for healing is really the need for a state of equilibrium. Peace exists when there is balance; healing exists when there is balance. The healing that is sought is really a prayer for balance. When you are filled with anxiety or anger, worry, depression, doubt, you are experiencing the lack of equilibrium. You are experiencing a characteristic of life’s experiences that is one of the chief reasons you are given life.

You have been given life in order to grow. Growth is achieved when imbalance seeks to become balance, when illness seeks to become health, when the dark seeks the light. It is that balance, it is the light, which provides the direction to your lives. Were it not for the imbalance, there would be no growth. Without the growth, human life would have no meaning.

It is true that you are blessed when you experience periods of imbalance. You are blessed because you are given opportunities to grow, to grow in your faith, to grow in your relationships with others, and especially to grow in your own personal relationship with yourself. So often attention is brought to the need to nurture relationships with others, but too little attention is given to the importance of self. It is not selfish to be concerned about the self. It is only selfish when one’s concern for self blinds one’s vision of another, for it is in the strengthening of self, in the centering of self that you are given the capacity to enhance the life of another.

A floatable raft is of no benefit to another unless it is fully secure. A lifebelt is no lifebelt at all if it cannot float on its own. The lifebelt has importance because it floats. You have importance because you can love, but it is you and your concerns for your ability to love that must be in place and must be secure. It is of no benefit to another to speak of the meaning of love, the meaning of compassion unless you have experienced love, unless you have experienced compassion. Love is not an idle concept. It is dynamic. It must be received before it can be given out. It is not generated spontaneously. It is nurtured, it is developed, it is fed.

When you are concerned for yourselves, it is this of which we speak. It is this which enables you to enrich the lives of others. You are all meant to enrich another. You are not given life for the purpose of self-growth with no expression, no manifestation of that growth. Such activity would be empty and so self-centered that it would not be according to the design that God has for all human beings. You are meant to be loving. You are meant to be giving. You are meant to be compassionate. You are meant to be sensitive. You are meant to be good listeners. You are meant to be committed to causes that affirm the dignity of life. That is a tall order for every human being, but your growth spiritually can be achieved when you are aware of those challenges and the importance of their fulfillment.

Life indeed is to be enjoyed, but the enjoyment ultimately comes from the gift of love. You present that love to another, and if you do, that other is empowered to be loving. You are the recipient of the love of others, and you are then empowered to be loving in return.

Real healing, therefore, is seen as the capacity to be loving. If you suffer physically and yet are loving, you are healed, for your life has purpose. Your life energy continues to move outward from where you stand. The human condition is enhanced because of your presence. That is a totally healed human being. That is an individual who experiences the equilibrium of which we speak.

Physical ailments only provide a background from which to exercise both the receiving and the giving of love. When you are ill, you are surrounded by love. It is not by accident that such takes place. You are surrounded by love because you are strengthened by love, and when you are strengthened by love, you have a greater capacity to be loving. Accept the fact that physical suffering is a part of life. It is a part of the growth process, and it is essential to that growth because out of that challenge comes renewed strength to be loving.

To be strong in love, you must be strong in your ability to receive love. Being receptive to love requires vulnerability. We’ve spoken about the importance of vulnerability in the past. But it is by allowing yourself to be vulnerable that you open yourself to receiving the love that you need in order to be loving. Illness provides new meanings for being vulnerable, and it is the inflow of love and the resulting outflow of love that create that equilibrium that is so necessary. It creates a potential for that equilibrium. Some people close themselves to the offering of love by others. That potential is not fulfilled, and the conflict between receiving love and giving love becomes all the more evident.

Each of you has observed others who have suffered, and even in the event of their passing into their spiritual lives, they were enormously loving. You look back at that experience and you realize the physical suffering was almost insignificant in comparison with the radiant power of love that came forth.

Indeed, welcome illness as an opportunity to grow in your love. We do not say you must enjoy illness, for no one enjoys illness. But it is such an important catalyst to your lives, and it is the reason you are given your human lives.

Accept your own humanity. Accept what it means to be human. Believe in the process of spiritual growth, and see your place within that pattern of growth—your growth and the growth of others. In so doing, you will have a clear view of your purpose in life— what it’s all about, why you experience what you experience—and you will have a greater understanding of how you respond to the experiences that are presented to you.

Your spiritual union with one another is a dynamic relationship. It is never thoroughly completed. It is always in the process of evolving. Each of you should seek opportunities for joining with others who seek the same goals and objectives of spiritual growth, for such a common search reminds all of the purpose of your lives.

You give each of us strength by your search. Your guides encourage and direct your lives, but it is only you who have the potential to commit to the search. Recognize that common commitment. Recognize the beauty of all life. Recognize the presence of the soul in all aspects of your daily living. Never feel you are alone. Never feel that one for whom you pray is ever alone. Allow yourselves to bathe in the light that surrounds you, and share that light with others through the many expressions of love that you are empowered to offer.

You bless us in your search. God blesses you in that search, and in the spiritual union that binds all of us and you together. Rejoice in that union! Rejoice in the warmth of that light! Embrace it and carry it as far as you can, for that is the purpose of your lives and ours.

We are all blessed by God’s loving presence.

Amen.