Late night thoughts

Mother, thank You for the message in the cards today! I held onto it in my heart, and sometimes reminded myself of it in my thoughts. 

Because of the book I'm reading - and I suspect this may be mixed with Your guidance - I think I have a better understanding of why I have to work so hard to accomplish so little in times of great stress and suffering. My society encourages us to look at other people. Which people we want to learn from so we can match their success, which people are causing our problems... always other people. So I learned to try to get other people to change what they do when I don't feel like I have direct control of problems. But what they do isn't really what I want. I want to be reasonably safe. I want to not live in fear. I want to have comfort to keep learning and doing things I love. And maybe I actually prevent some of that, or limit it, by focusing on thinking the only way is to change someone else. Especially since I do my best to protect them in the process. I need to focus more on what I want for myself, not from others.

I've also been thinking about how much I enjoy finding ways to include devotion in the things I do. In the religion I grew up in, we were often told specific things to do and not do in order to show our devotion. I tried. I tried a lot. But now I don't think it's that I was failing so much as the instructions we were given we flawed. With You, and with Others, I don't feel like I have to show my devotion, but that I live it. It's about the relationships, not performance. I love that I keep finding ways to weave devotion and things I enjoy doing together. I love that I can live this.