“And each learning experience will be a learning experience because it will touch your heart. . . .You may feel as if everything makes you want to cry because everything will touch you, each lesson will feel tender. Unlearning has no harshness about it. If you simply allow it to come, it will reward you constantly with what can best be described as tenderness. (A Course of Love, 24.1)”
Affirmation: “I invite tender thoughts to my day.”
Reflections:
1 – Being Vulnerable
The tenderness that Jesus speaks of in the passage for today is not, perhaps, a wholly welcome feeling. We feel too vulnerable when we are feeling tenderness. But our heart is softening, and we are sometimes close to tears as we contemplate the gentleness with which God treats us.
2 – More Desired Emotion
Yet tenderness is a much more desired emotion than is harshness. Tenderness is of love, and harshness is of fear. And love will crowd out fear. The more tender we are, the more open our hearts are to the blessings of God. And we ourselves help in the process of gaining a better life, for like attracts like, and we find ourselves without the will to condemn, a will that ruined things for us as well as the others whom we sometimes condemned.
3 – Allow Tenderness to Envelop
We need to allow this tenderness to envelop us. We need to welcome the vulnerable part of our hearts, the part that makes us want to cry–for it is indeed a tragedy that we have walked this earth for so long in such a bad fix. We felt separated from God, and we blamed ourselves for this sense of separation. But what is part of God (we ourselves) can never actually have been separate. God has been waiting patiently, while we had our adolescent rebellion against him. As His communication channels with us open once again, after eons of being asleep to the knowledge of Him, we are welcomed back with just this tenderness that we are experiencing.
4 – A Softened Heart
There is no mystery here. We know, if we think about it, that we like a softened heart. We feel love that way. And it feels good to feel love. May our days go better as we let this knowledge–for it is knowledge, not perception–become an intimate part of our assessment of our lives. When we are happier, we will be in a better position to reach out to others in our lives, to make their lives go better as well. We do not reach out, if our advances are unwelcome. But we stand ready to help when others express an interest in our lives and in what we believe.
5 – Charmed Lives
It may seem sometimes, in this process, that we ourselves are living charmed lives. But those who do not know why will wonder what gives us the joy. If they ask, we can respond, in as kindly a way as possible. Our lives are no more charmed than the lives of others who have seen the same light that we have. And that light is within us all.
Prayer:
Dear Father/Mother,
As I live more mindfully, I will react from a tender spot in my heart. This is You softening my harshness, and I do only welcome this change. If I cry, You will cry with me. You will soften my heart to gentleness and lovingness, and all will be well. I will live a charmed life, as will all who listen carefully to You. Thank You.
I welcome this time of tenderness. Having met Mari, who scribed A Course of Love, I know that she lives tenderness, and she is a good role model for what Jesus was trying to tell us in this remarkable trilogy. Be with us as we would all seek to be more like Mari, who heard the words first. She lives a quiet life, and it is in quietness that You are heard most consistently.
Be with me today as I seek to be attentive, ever more attentive, to the significant others in my circle. Thank You for the camaraderie that I know in everyday life. The camaraderie and the love. You are blessing me tremendously, and for that I thank You. I ask You to bless, in a similar way, all of my brothers and sisters in this world. May what I say in this blog touch their hearts, and it will be You touching their hearts.
Amen.
MIRACLES EACH DAY 