Over the past few weeks, I have been having an issue with money matters, accepting the abundance of the universe for myself. Though I have had ample demonstration of God's caring for me, and don't WORRY about money, I realized that I was undergoing another lesson in FAITH.

At the same time, a young woman I have known for years began sharing her emotional pain due to her unhappiness with a three-year relationship, which subsequently ended. I had first met her casually more than four years ago, and immediately recognized her as one of the "lightworkers" of the world. A special inner happiness and radiance extended from her. After a few weeks in her temporary work assignment, I didn't see her again for about three years, until a year ago. Since then we have become good friends, sharing dinner at least once a week.

I learned that during the intervening years, she had gone through severe physical and emotional crises that had almost destroyed her body, but had not dampened her bright inner spirit. Being very reserved, though we became fast friends, she was very cautious about opening her emotional self to me, and I even commented that ours was the most slowly developing spiritual partnerships I had ever experienced, albeit a very happy one.

That changed when she shared her current experiences, and we reached that KNOWING of Oneness that I have come to know so well. But it also was uncomfortable for her. The intimacy of Mind is very unsettling to the ego, which tries to equate it to previous experiences of the emotional self, which had hurt her deeply in the past (see Selves).

I then realized that I was seeing in the evolution of OUR relationship the material reflection of MY inner relationship with God (as above, so below). Just as she was building, step by step, a trust in me, I have been building my faith in God, and I realized that is true of ALL relationships in life.

When we are born, we have no walls, no barriers with others, and are totally loving and totally accepting of ALL others, our NATURAL state (Jesus admonition to "come as little children"). We LEARN to erect barriers, to become "separate" from ALL THAT IS and therefore see ourselves as separate from others. When we consciously "fall in love", we bring down those barriers with our beloved, but do so cautiously, one step at a time. It is like saying "ok, I let you past this barrier, and you didn't hurt me, so I guess it is ok to let you past this next barrier".

And so it has been for me in my spiritual path. "OK, God, I trusted you with that, and it turned out ok, so I guess I can trust you with this next, BIGGER thing." And I realize that I will continue to do that, now CONSCIOUSLY, developing my faith in God until there are NO BARRIERS, NO SEPARATE WILL, NO SEPARATION, until I KNOW, fully, I AM, LOVE.