Jude – my question is so all-encompassing that I don’t even know how to reduce it. My grown son lives with me and is miserable; I am facing bankruptcy, although not for debt incurred by myself; I am afraid of people; and have no family or community. When I finally, finally die (which I want to), my son will be all alone, and his suffering is all my fault because I gave him everything I had or could think of and it wasn’t nearly enough. I’ve prayed and asked for help, but don’t know if there was ever a response. My heart and soul and body collapsed a year ago, and I am back at work, still trying to do the very highest and holiest thing, every day. I’ve given life, every day, as much as I have to give, but I am an absolute failure.

Everything I believed would be wonderful turned out horrible. And although the Universe seemed to give me many internal gifts and the passion to live a holy life, to make the world a better place, every road I’ve ever explored has led to the place of the nightmares that terrorized my every night in childhood. Now I think that those dreams were precognitive: lost in the dark while the last light disappears, unnoticed by those I’m struggling to keep up with; the still black, inky waters waiting to take me; the silent concrete dirty streets with giant buildings and no life anywhere; desolation…despair …people talking to each other, but no one talks to me. Everything I’ve tried has been futile. But I’m not giving up. No matter what the cost, one does the right thing, inasmuch as that can be determined. But I am so so tired. So alone. Will I die and go to the dark place, lost forever? Does anyone anywhere care that I exist? Or will I be abandoned forever?

The guide’s response:

Blessed, blessed one, you care that you exist.  To love yourself is the greatest gift you will give yourself.  There are a great number of beings around you that care about you, but you cannot see the love they have for you now for you have surrounded yourself by a great barrier.  How you keep asking do I change?  How do I make this work that I feel better about it?

Firstly, you must not negate that that has occurred and you have created it to be responsible, to hold close to your heart all actions that you created out of your choices and to love yourself for that.  It has brought you to here and you do be and you do know you will not pass into a dark abyss.  But first, you must allow this great smoke screen around you to part to see the light that is there for you.  You have many people that you have pushed away that want to be close to you.  But in order to be close to you, you have to see them, you have to hear them.  So put down all of the “I can’t, I am not good enough.”  Take off your shoes and be.  Be hearing what they say, be seeing what their pain is, see how they walk in their paths and you have done beautifully too.  Nothing is lost. All things are still possible.

There is part of you very angry at the world, angry at what you created.  But until you own it my dear, you cannot love it.   If this sounds harsh, I do not mean it to be so.  I want you to know that you are light and love.  In truth, you have helped many people.  They are stronger and wiser for you being in their lives.  So, seek to see you through their eyes.  I know, you would like a road map.  You would like me to say to you, dearest one, tomorrow when you rise you will change all things you have done and that will heal you.  For every action you used to do, you must do differently, you will seek out different avenues of interest, you will go to something you have never done before, you will laugh where you would have cried.  I can hand that map to you, my child, but will you read it?   It is all about your choices.  First, drink deep of the love that you be.  Then beginning with simple tasks, put love in front of it first and then see what you will do. Bless you my child for you are not lost, you are loved.