You a tale told to great effect. The comments reflect how it touched. Like you and Lynda, I also had a Dark Queen in my life, only it was my great-grandmother.

It’s hard to forgive someone’s meanness when we have absolutely no idea what made them so mean. I knew and greatly loved her mother, my great-great grandmother. She had the sweetest nature of anyone I ever knew. But her daughter was mean. My grandmother, her daughter was mostly nice (she spanked me once–didn’t think she was so nice then), but her mother was mean. Weird.

I love people’s stories or testimonies. The resilience with which we humans rise again and again and again, and sometimes of the ones who cannot rise again. I especially like ones like yours. Seeing where you are now, reading of your still-humanness, finding out where you come from — it all gives me the light at the end fo the tunnel. Even the darkest stories ultimately have the happy ending of Gloria writing heavenletters.

About it was the style then — yes, that is true, but I have to say that doesn’t carry any weight with me. I mean it’s no excuse. I think excuses are not a good thing.

Like you, I had family experiences similar to yours and Sylvia’s, only mine was my mother.

It occured to me reading the fairytale, that the message Sylvia heard over and over was “poor Sylvia.”
Perhaps she so desperately needed to make herself perfect (and her children perfect), that she went about it in a distorted way. So many need the darkness in order to see and experience the light.

In your sister’s day, “thumbsucking” was frowned upon, and the mother was looked at as “coddling” her children.
My mother used to put cayenne pepper on mine - ah, I just had a revelation! Maybe that is why I don’t particularly enjoy spicey foods ;0)

To answer your question why so many did not interfere with Sylvia’s discipline style - because it becomes a war. The Sylvia’s in our lives will wear us down, simply with their tenacity to be perfect. It becomes survival of the fittest.

I am certain that her husband and others took guilt with them to the other side when they passed, for not doing something. But it is all about choice isn’t it?

I know through conversations I have had with my father (who is still living) that he still has guilt about the way he chose to handle his marriage and the upbringing of his two children.

And I do believe we choose to experience certain scenarios prior to our incarnation. I have many that I still haven’t been able to sort out, as to what the lesson was, and why. And maybe that is not important.

I do know that when I read fairytales from Gloria, and hear or read stories from others that harmonize with my experiences, it is ALWAYS healing for me.
Thank you Gloria.

God knew exactly what he was doing when he chose people such as you, and Neale Donald Walsch, and so many others, who while in their darkest hour would never have dreamnt that they would become our way to God communication.

I can’t count the number of times in my life, that during a very trying an emotional time, I would yell out, “God, why have you forsaken me? Left me all alone to deal with this… how will I ever get through?”
And I have always heard the voice (when I stop and wait in the silence to listen) “I am here. I have not left you. All you need to do is ask.” And then “be still and know that I am God.”

And if your fairytales, and stories bring just one more person closer to God, then we will have less and less of the darkness in our world. And far more love and light and happiness.

My niece is probably as happy as anyone else. She is happy enough. I imagine it’s true of everyone — they come to terms with their lives and extract the best from it they can.

You, on the other hand, are happier.

Why I imagine the family stories have value to Heavenletters is: They show that anyone can Godwrite. Anyone. They also show growth from the process of Godwriting — sitting down with God every day. A written story may also attract an audience that might not hear about Heavenletters and/or take a look at them otherwise. I think I could not be writing all this unless God wanted me to do. I am kinda driven to get this all written down. I doubt that I would have the energy unless God were behind me.

It is very hard now to do something just for myself. I have no incentive unless there is more to it than that. At least, I think so.

Much has already been written and aired in the blog. For me, I don’t really discover what I have to say until I start writing. Then connections pour in.

I am also fortunate to have a magnificent audience already here that can keep me level-headed.

I cringe to think of where I would be on my own without Godwriting. What mess would I have gotten into. How barren my life would be without it.

Thank you, dear Charley.

But only one of all those stories directly involves someone willing and able to get up every morning before the crack of dawn and write down a message from God that people all over the world anticipate and would feel an emptiness without.

As it happens, that person goes thru life stubbing her toe same as me, and not always reacting in a Godly manner, same as me, and I find that not only fascinating, but also very comforting. I guess it’s the contrast involved in the human condition. It’s why I come to this blog daily to see if there is something new like people used to crowd the dock to get the lastest chapter of a Dickens novel in progress.

And as to the form of this story, or others, I don’t think of it in terms of what might end up on the New York Times Bestseller list, tho someone else might. I like to read the stories just as they come and I don’t necessarily need to ever read them over again.

What I take away from the story of your niece is that she has triumphed over adversity in a way that must be highly pleasing to God and makes me want to try harder. The details of that story or the particular telling of it will fade but the fact that it is humanly possible to overcome to that extent remains as a beacon of hope for me personally.

Putting a book together to the point where it could be printed, or even transmitted as an e-book, takes a lot of time and effort. I wonder how much doing this would take away from all else that you are given to do. I wonder what benefit it would have as opposed to the benefit of being able to read new stories as they come. Would there be enough energy left for new stories if you spent what you have on a book? Just wondering.

Anyone with word and computer skills could pick out all the family stories and put them in one place if they felt it was important to do. In my opinion, the less tinkering with them, the better. In fact I would consider it sufficient to just list all the links to particular blog entries in one place and keep it up to date.

Someone else who enjoys lying in bed turning the pages of a book might go so far as to put it into form suitable for printing as an on-demand self-published single-copy book. And pay the fee for setting it up, I might add. The problem with that for me is that, unlike a Dickens novel, I consider this story never ending.

I believe it is said that everyone is responsible to everyone for everything.

We contribute to everything.