I want to give you some tips today that have always helped me. Love is gentle and kind. That’s in Corinthians 13 in the Bible. It’s used a lot in wedding services. It also needs to be used after the wedding services to keep that gentleness and kindness in.

I’ve seen people who use either sarcasm or abruptness in public that embarrasses the other partner or the children. We have to know and understand that when these things occur, we have a responsibility to let out family know that they come first in our lives.

Even when we don’t get along or see problems or there is something going on, we can back away and not constantly say, “You should be doing this. You ought to be doing this.”

We should say, “I love you the way that you are. I love you unconditionally. You can be angry with me, and I’ll still love you. You can do things that I would not have done myself, and I’ll still love you. You can be anything you want to be, and I will still love you.

“I don’t always have to agree with you. I will set boundaries of what can go on in my house about what I do not choose to have in my life, but I’ll still love you,” and keep a smile on our faces.

Some of the things people, especially children, don’t realize about love from parents is that there are some of us who constantly wear a frown.

I was taking one of my daughters on her first day of school. She was afraid. I went in with her, and she was holding onto me and trembling. She wasn’t normally afraid of anything. I kept saying, “Honey, what’s the matter?” She said, “She doesn’t like us.” I said, “Who doesn’t like you?” She said, “The teacher.”

The teacher had been late getting in. They usually have a sign posted outside of that room that lists all of the kids. She hadn’t had time to put it up, so as the children came in, they would call out their names.

She was flipping through this list to check off the names. She had this frown on her face. Every child in the room was deathly afraid because she was frowning. She was frowning because she was concentrating on the names on the list.

Frowns make a difference in our attitudes. It’s hard to be happy and radiate love when you’re frowning. Try it. Keep a smile on your face. After awhile, it becomes normal. You will feel better when you’re smiling.

I took two of my daughters shopping one day as teenagers because they were eighteen months apart. After about three hours, they had found absolutely nothing that fit right. I said “Let’s go home.”

We went out to the car. I sat down and said, “Whew!” They both said, “What did I do?” I said, “What do you mean?” She said, “What did I do? You always sigh when you’re angry.” I said, “No, I sigh because it feels good.” Take a deep breath and let it out. It feels good. Other people see it in a different way.

Anne

I use this for an affirmation frequently. “I release and let go of all people who have completed their part in my divine plan.” This is always done with great harmony.

If you try to hold onto someone when it’s time for that separation, it’s traumatic. People will find a reason to leave. If they are not feeling comfortable, that’s when you need to begin to say, “I let go of all people who have completed their part of my divine plan,” then add, “with ease and comfort.”

This does not mean that people are leaving your life for good. It means you need a little space so each person can grow at their own speed. Maybe six months later they’ll come back in and say, “Where have you been? I’ve missed you.” Both of you will have changed enough that you can come back together, and it will be peaceful and harmonious.

As long as we are trying to hold onto somebody, it’s a control issue. We cannot control other people’s thoughts, feelings, attitudes and emotions. We have to let them go in order for them to grow to that space where we mesh again.

This is what love does. That loving nature begins to feel discomfort-able. I don’t know if that’s a word or not. I just made up a good word. Discomfort is a feeling that something needs to be let go. It’s not letting it go forever. It’s letting it go to allow for personal growth in each division, both in you and the other person.

It’s like moving out of kindergarten and going into the first grade. Sometimes you have to let all of those kindergarteners go at the same time because they live in different parts of the city. They come together again maybe in junior high or the second or third grade when things stabilize again. The Law of Attraction will work.

When we have love in our hearts, and we make up our minds not that we are going to be giving of love but that we are love, we have no problem giving it.

We think of love as something where we’re turned upside down because it’s a partner coming into our life that we can idolize. We can hold him up and put him on a pedestal. What happens when they fall? We’re heartbroken.

We don’t want that kind of relationship. Love is when you attract likeminded people who are on the same wavelength. Love is gentle and kind.

This is a Mother’s Day story, but I’ll tell it now. Many years ago, I was in a grocery store just before Mother’s Day. I was going to be talking about love. I kept thinking, “What example can I use to explain family togetherness so people understand that family love has to be first?” I believe that the first responsibility that God has given us may be our spouse or children. It’s in the family idea.

The grocery store was very crowded that day. I heard a little boy crying somewhere up in the front. He was yelling, “Mommy!” at the top of his voice. A few people went to him, and he wouldn’t talk to them or have anything to do with them.

His mother didn’t answer him for a few minutes. She was way away. He stopped, held his little head up and said, “Beautiful lady!” There was no answer. “Beautiful lady!” There was no answer. “Beautiful lady!” This woman came running and picked him up.

Who taught him that? His dad. Isn’t that a perfect projection of love? A little 2 or 3-year-old knew he could get his mother with words like that. She would recognize his voice. This is the kind of image that we want to give to our families.

Anne

The Aspect of Love from Emmet Fox’s The Seven Main Aspects of God.

If you really want to see changes in your life, take one of these aspects every day and say it all day for months. It will cure any problem that you have. It will stop any lawsuit. It will transform any relationship.

Recognition is the thing I’ve been hammering on forever. Sometimes we’re in our own little world. We don’t know what’s going on around us. We can sense change, but not enough to do something about it.

When you’re on a spiritual path, you will be making changes in your life. Some of the people you call “friends” will be moving out of your life. You’ll have others who move in, but there will be times every now and then when you say, “Where did everybody go? Is there something wrong with me?” All of a sudden there’s this big change. It’s normal.

Let’s say you have 30 friends around you. When you’re on a spiritual path and they’re not, your vibrations, thoughts and feelings don’t match anymore. You might want to have more harmony in your life, and the people around you are in the midst of chaos. If other people are in the midst of chaos, there has to be a separation.

If we are entertaining thoughts of frustration, disharmony, pain or suffering, and we don’t turn the past loose, that will affect the people who can’t come into our lives anymore because there’s not room for them.

This is why we use denials in this church. Denials clear the path to let the new come in. They give you ideas of things you need to let go. If it’s not serving you anymore, you need to let it go.

It’s like parents going to PTA meetings after their children finish college. Let it go. That’s not your purpose anymore. That did you well when your children were small, but it doesn’t do well for you anymore. It’s hanging onto things that we have completed.

Anne

Everything in this world is good. The hummingbirds don’t know sugar is supposed to kill you, so they drink sugar water and are fed.

There are some mice that don’t know arsenic is supposed to kill them. They have become immune to it. I’m not suggesting we eat arsenic. What I am suggesting is that we stop putting a negative on anything in life and declare it all good.

If you believe that sugar is not good for you, and there are three grains of sugar in the sauce on your chicken or vegetables at a restaurant, it will find a way for you not to feel well afterward because it will work according to you belief. Make those changes prior. Stop giving energy to what has been claimed bad in the world and begin to declare everything good.

We believe in the omnipresence of God. God is everywhere in all things, all wisdom and all understanding. God is, period, all of the goodness in the world.

From the Garden of Eden, what we name things to be is what it becomes. God gave power in the Garden of Eden to name the animals, birds and trees. Somewhere along the line we started naming poison oak and poison ivy bad, so it became bad.

Everything that we name good is good for us, to us and through us. That doesn’t mean you should play with poison ivy this afternoon. It means you should change yourself first then play with it.

I used to have a woman who believed in all of the Edgar Cayce teachings, which were that you were supposed to eat foods in a certain way and with certain things. She couldn’t understand the way that I didn’t follow those rules.

I told her that it’s not what goes into your mouth but what comes out of your mouth that is good. She said Edgar Cayce didn’t say that, so I had to get my book to look it up. God also says that in the bible. It’s what comes out of your mouth.

The attitude and the feelings that we have must be in the good line. You didn’t get to where you are by calling things bad in one day. It will take more than one day to remember to claim everything good in your life. That’s the way you will grow in spirit, health, happiness and wholeness into the newness that you want in life. This is what all of us want. We’re going to make it happen.

Anne

In your imagination, you can begin to think, “I want to give it life. I choose to give it life.” See an area where you heart is and all around your heart. This is your life-giving area. Give life out as love, peace and contentment.

Watch your heart as it pulses joyfully and healthfully with life force. It feels good. It is the wholeness of life. Now you move into really letting that life force work out in you, for you and through you.

The life of God is your life. It moves in and through you in peace in total harmony. The life force of God is goodness in action. The word “God” means good. God is good, omnipotent and omnipresent in all ways in all things.

The glory of God uses you to make a demonstration of health, wholeness and prosperity in every single way. The life force of you, in you and through you is healthy relationships, healthy wealth, healthy peace of mind, healthy goodness and healthy everything. It is what you are that is bringing forth the goodness in your life.

You are the health of God because you are the life of God. God uses you to do a greater good, to have a greater, more prosperous, healthier world and to be able to utilize our foods, nurturing and bodies.

Realize and recognize that not everything here that we have heard is not good for us truly is. By accepting the omnipresence of God, these things transform into good. It is the goodness of God. Everything that we had thoughts in the past about that were hindering us in any way will turn out to be good.

If we understand this and know this, we can look in our past and declare these to be good. We can say, “Those things got me to where I am today. I give thanks. I give life to everything, and it becomes the goodness of God.” And so it is.

Anne