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Remember that if you have inharmony in your home, no matter how bad the situation may seem to be you can bring harmony and happiness into it by giving a little time each day to a definite line of positive thought.
Divine love is the keynote of a happy family. You have a real home when love is being expressed by all the members of your family. If certain members seem to have lost their contact with the principle of love, do not despair, for you can help them to become established in it again. You can best help them through your silent words.
Try to realize that divine love is everywhere present and that it is therefore being expressed now through every member of your family. Even though it may seem to be lying dormant in certain ones, know that it is not lost. By realizing this truth for your dear ones and by dropping out of your thoughts and words condemnation for any of them you will be able to awaken something in their hearts that will quicken God’s love in them, and thus you will be able to restore happiness and harmony to your home. Give thanks for the presence of love in each one even though there may seem to be little evidence of it at first.
Give thanks for the things you desire and you will attract them. This is the law. Give thanks because you know that God has implanted love in the heart of every man, woman, and child.
When a person does not express love he has just forgotten about God’s gift of it to him, and he really needs to have his attention called to it by someone who remembers. Preaching at him will not be nearly so helpful as knowing the truth for him. By realizing for him the truth that God is love and that he also is an expression of that love you can help him to uncover and use this wonderful gift that is hidden within him.
Be faithful in silently giving thanks each day for the manifestation of God’s love in your family. See love infolding every member of your family, blessing and healing them. Give thanks also that every one of them is daily becoming more conscious of God’s beautiful, satisfying love, which is warming his heart. Be sure that there is only one love in the universe, God’s love. It may be expressed through many channels, such as a mother’s love for her child, a wife’s love for her husband, or a husband’s love for his wife, two sweethearts for each other, your love for your friends, Jesus’ love for humanity, a good man’s love for a worthy cause, or for his country, and so on.
God’s love is always present everywhere and anyone who desires to do so may draw upon it and use it lavishly, for its supply is unlimited. When you have love in your thoughts it is bound to find expression in your words and actions. You draw a little closer to an appreciation of what God love means every time you think a loving thought.
When unhappiness, inharmony, and sickness are upsetting a home it is because God’s great healing love is not being recognized and expressed as it should be by the members of the family. When they become more receptive to divine love order will be restored in this home.
When a member of the family takes a detour instead of the smooth and safe high road maintained by love, he runs into difficulties at once. When he does this he is likely to blame his troubles on other persons.
But do not criticize such a one, for he needs help rather than censure. He should be silently reminded of the presence and power within him. You can call divine love into activity in the members of your family by faithfully and persistently expressing it yourself and then radiating it to the others by affirmations of Truth. You can also help others to express it by having faith in their divinity even when there may seem to be little evidence of its presence in them.
You can call into activity the divine abilities of your family by speaking the Truth to them in the silence. Do not feel that you are trying to dominate their lives or to make them over. Realize that you are simply calling out that which is in their divine nature, the gift that God has placed within them for them to use and enjoy. The very fact that you make a business of recognizing this gift in them will help them find it.
Love begets love.
Criticism and complaints aimed at those who are not expressing their highest moral and spiritual nature only make matters worse.
Do not complain about the shortcomings of your family. Get quiet and ask God’s help in solving the problem. While it may sometimes be necessary to give corrective advice to members of the family, your most effective help must be given silently, in your own consciousness. You must become an example and a leader in the practice of divine love. You cannot stand on the side lines and tell others to become loving. Unless you yourself become unified with the consciousness of divine love you can hardly expect to transform your family. When you express love you operate in a field where the Father can best help you to accomplish everyday miracles. You cannot fail when you are working with Him.
Remember that when you are kind and loving under all circumstances you will be in a position to awaken the sleeping love and divine abilities hidden in the members of your family. When impersonal love reigns in your consciousness it will become contagious. Your family will catch it and your neighbors will catch it. Remember that love is not a matter of possessing those you love; neither has love anything in common with jealousy, doubt, personal dictatorship, or suspicion. Love must be sincere, free, and poised. Emotional, endearing, gushy expressions do not necessarily prove the activity of real love. Since love is the keynote of a happy family you should strike this note often by speaking the word “love” silently. In this way you can keep your family in tune.
When anyone is inharmonious it is a pretty good sign that he is dissatisfied with himself. He may think that he is displeased with someone else, but that is only a trick to fool his own conscience. More than anything else he craves a remedy for his lack of harmony. He is hungry for the very things he already possesses in spirit and in truth: love, peace of mind, and happiness. You can help him to find harmony and thus correct his disposition.
Remember that in Spirit you are good and kind and loving, and so are all the members of your family. All of you are noble, thoughtful, wise, and considerate; all are thrifty and co-operative.
Remember that if you faithfully persist in seeing the light in them you can, though alone, eventually lift them all up.
Begin now to lift your family up to their true estate in the kingdom of God now present. But remember that you cannot do this until you have first lifted up your own consciousness. Remember that you can do all things in Him that strengtheneth you.
SUGGESTIONS FOR DAILY MEDITATION
SUNDAY: Divine love is now established in this house.
MONDAY: I rejoice and give thanks to God because I know that His love abides in each member of this family.
TUESDAY: God is love, and you are an expression of that love.
WEDNESDAY: The love of Christ in me greets the love of Christ in you.
THURSDAY: I do not hold you under thoughts of condemnation. I set you free to do the will of God.
FRIDAY: You are no longer under my personal dominion; you are free in God’s love.
SATURDAY: God’s infinite love surrounds, protects, and prospers this family.
