Maybe You Don’t Have to Understand

Love can do anything. Love can work miracles.

You may think:

“Sure. Love can work miracles. Lives have been saved, etc. etc. I believe it. What I don’t believe is that my love can work miracles in my life. I have given love that was not answered. My giving mammoth love didn’t bring my true love to me. All my love has not spared me in any way I can see – except perhaps to spare me from happiness – I can see that all right. My experience seems to have been that my love has been misunderstood, made too much of or not enough of. Life is too perplexing. I am sure that You have a full view of life, God. I just don’t.

“I want to say that You are not living my life. I am. You may say that You and I are One, yet I don’t see your heart hurting. You can say that Your heart is mine and vice versa, yet I don’t get it.

“God, I do not want You to hurt even once as I have been hurt. I do not want You to hurt at all. I am happy that You are wise and full of love and beyond all the discourse and developments of life as I know it. I would not want You to be otherwise, I hope You know that. I would not want to change You in any way. It is my individual self that I would like to change if I but knew how.

“I’m pretty sure that You would tell me to look at my life differently, and that this would make all the difference in the world. I am sure You are right. I simply don’t know how to change how I feel. When I feel good, I feel good. When I feel bad, I feel bad. And when either takes the spotlight, it has the spotlight. I do try to think positively. I do try and mean to receive all the goodness of the Universe. I do try to give love and I do give love, and, nevertheless, here I am feeling lost and away from life and its joy.

“I am a novice here. I don’t know how to be spontaneously happy or spontaneously anything at all. How I feel seems to be visited upon me.”

Now I must interrupt you, beloved. Please confess there are moments when you are spontaneously unhappy. It is not always that something outside you has brought it on. There you are, and, suddenly, you feel extreme sadness. And there are times when you may find yourself spontaneously happy. Happiness and unhappiness seem to arrive at their own insistence, not yours. It is this same way that you trip over a stone or find a diamond on the street. You don’t make it happen. It happens. This is how you see it.

I ask you to see life differently in this way:

Have in mind the joy of finding a diamond. Don’t have in mind fear of tripping and falling. I understand that, in human life, both occur, and you could trip over a stone while you are thinking of finding a diamond. I don’t say that finding happiness or unhappiness is a magic trick that you perform. I am saying that you are not a victim. Yes, unanticipated accidents happen, and accidents anticipated also happen. If you are thinking of a chocolate cake, you are more likely to find one in front of you because you honor a chocolate cake in your thoughts.

When you think of a mishap or tragedy in front of you, a mishap or tragedy has been thought of and is more likely to find you. I have said before your welcome thoughts give you more happiness while you think of them. There is more joy for you in thinking about chocolate cake than there is joy for you in thinking of something you don’t want. It’s also possible to conjure a certain sweetness in seeing yourself as the hero of a tragedy, how the tears fall, how you suffer, how brave you are. Is this not also possible? Beyond your thoughts, you absorb the emotions that are deeper than the thoughts.

Yes, you are right. There is so much you don’t understand. Maybe you don’t have to understand. Maybe just keep your attention on the brass rail as at a merry-go-round at a carnival, and then you will see the brass rail more easily.