God, I feel as if I can talk to You about anything. And increasingly, at any time. So I want to talk to You about my fingers. About this decades-old habit, started when I was, what? You know. Three? Four? Five? This lifelong habit I have of picking my fingers, which drives Pete crazy, and which, for all these years, I have assumed You judged me for. I certainly have judged myself. And in that judgment, I named the habit sin, which I really think, thought, it is. Until I was falling asleep–or between sleep and waking–and You said, I think it was You, something extraordinary. And I want and need to talk to You about it.
You said You didn’t see this habit as sin. Is that true? Was that You, that sudden thought in my head, so contrary to the way I have thought?
Yes, that was Me. What I need you to understand is that all the times you felt prompted by Me to stop, those leadings were not to lead you out of something I was judging you guilty for. I have asked you to stop because of what the habit is doing to you. I see, deeper than you yourself see, the sense of shame and guilt and even despair you carry, over this seemingly simple little habit. You began as a way to handle stress and tension in your house when you were a very young child. You have used it ever since, when you were tired, or stressed, or afraid, or under any kind of accusation. To keep yourself silent, you took to tearing at yourself.
Let Me ask you a question. In fact, let Me ask you several questions.
Would you reach over, take Pete’s hands in yours, and begin systematically to tear at his fingers?
No, of course not!
Would you do this to a close friend?
No.
To an acquaintance, perhaps?
No.
How about a stranger? Would you feel free, would you be motivated, to do that to a stranger’s hands?
No, Lord. You know not.
Well, how about someone who hurt you? Would you reach out and hurt them back in this way?
NO.
Okay, well, what about an animal, then? Would you do something comparable to an animal?
No, never.
So. Last question. Would you, if you could be with Me in a physical way, would you do this to Me?
No, Lord, of course not!
Look at what you are saying. You are making yourself less than anyone else you would ever know, or meet. Less than the animals, whom you purport to love.
I do love them, You know I do.
Here is what I know: you do not yet fully love yourself. You have not yet fully received the depth, the breadth, the length and the height of My love for you. I have asked you to stop, and told you that stopping will open doors to greater service and ministry, not because this habit is sinful in My eyes, but because it reveals you are not yet fully healed, fully whole. You don’t see yourself as I see you, and you see yourself much less clearly than you see every other living thing on the planet.
Lord, something set me off this past spring. Sometimes I know my triggers but this time I am not sure what did it. I was fine, I was okay all during Pete not feeling well last fall, and holidays with family which are always stressful, and then the decision to move Yellowhouse, everything involved with that, and then suddenly something upset me to the point I started again.
And the shame of starting has fueled you to continue. That is what I want to address, and relieve–your deep sense of shame. Every one of My Children is worthy of love, of My Love. Every one of My Children begins as a precious and innocent being. And as you well know, I will move heaven and earth to show each one the truth of that Love. So what do I have to do, what can I say, to bring you to a place where the mirror you look deeply into is My Eyes of Love for you?
That sounds like a Vision Quest question.
Indeed it is. You have an old, flawed, distorted mirror. I would like to lead you away from that mirror to a place where you can see a clear, honest, pure reflection. You have been afraid to come to that place, seeing it as a place of shame and accusation, which is what you are running from, and what your tearing at your fingers is an expression of. But I Am calling you, asking you, pleading with you, please stop running. Stop running from your own precious self. Stop running from the you I see, the you I love, the you I chose before you were even born. Be willing to live in the light I Am offering you now, and I promise you, the compulsion you have felt for the past five-and-a-half decades will lose its grip and its power on your mind and your heart.
I Am asking you because your pain grieves Me, and I would relieve it. But we must be partners for that to happen. Because this originated in your feelings about yourself, you have to have a part in its resolution. This isn’t a work I can do by Myself; I need you as My Partner in your wholeness.
Okay, Lord. I really do want to be free of it.
Yes, I know you do. But hear Me well — you need to be free of your distorted view of yourself, in order to be free of the habit you so despise. You think the habit is causing the distorted self-image, but I tell you, the reverse is true. The distorted self-image is manifesting in your habit, not the other way around. So Come. Come to My Pool of Reflection; stand here beside Me, look into My Love and see what I see. You–and your life–will never be the same.