Secrets of Life
Disclosures about important questions of life
- Chapter 10 -
GIRL, VIRGIN, MOTHER AND WIFE
4 August 1870
SINCE your company is almost predominantly of the female gender, which exerts such a significant influence on the spiritual education of My children, I will for the sake of your sisters give also a few words for them. Then the ones may realize what they really ought to have done, and the others consider what they still should do, partly so as to deserve the name "My children" and partly so as to operate in such a way that all souls that will be entrusted to them by Me may also be guided onto My roads in accordance with My higher decree. Let us then come to the point:
Let us begin as with the preceding fourfold dictation, namely, with youth, or with the first phase as child or, here of the female gender, with the girl.
Soon after birth when no sexual difference as to urges and passions is present and the vegetative life alone is predominant, in the boy or the girl the only discernible difference lies in the physical arrangement. In the girl the weaker, calmer, suffering, passive nature is predominant, whereas in the boy already the violent and more active temperament is discernible which later forms his character, as compared with the gentler and weaker girl.
This phase is, therefore, the same with both sexes. All the passions and virtues are peacefully dormant in the sleep of the righteous until other conditions arouse them to separation and conflict and, as we have shown in the case of the boy, also in the girl self-will and anger are the first bad qualities manifesting.
What I have said there about these two impulses, now applies also to the girl. Only here, self-will is an even more dangerous passion in the girl than in the boy because at a later age the boy possesses more willpower to curb it, whereas the weaker girl is unable to resist the urge. Moreover, she is more easily confirmed in all her actions because, being of the weaker sex, she meets everywhere with more indulgence. But this indulgence towards her defiance later on will give bad hours to the virgin and mother, for she will then come into contact with the opposite sex, which was destined by Me personally to rule, not to be ruled. So much on these two traits.
Whichever of your sisters has to bring up children, shall watch out for these two poisonous herbs. Although woman was created to restore wherever she goes peace and blessing among upset people, she can on the other hand transform the most beautiful heaven into hell if she lacks the strength to subdue these bad traits. This results in the worst consequences, not only for the stubborn and easily angered woman herself, but also for the children and grandchildren, in the way a cancer progresses.
That which in the boy with growing age is pugnacity, the desire to be stronger than others and rule over his comrades, which is a widespread trait, is with the girl vanity. The boy wants to be considered by his playmates the strongest, the most agile (and most clever) and as such feared, whereas the girl wants to be the most beautiful and best dressed (and most attractive) among her girlfriends. The former applies also to the boy, but is by far not so dangerous a passion as with the girl, where as jealousy it is of even more significance.
Jealousy is the worst and most terrible passion which crowds out from the female heart all the other, better traits, combining with hatred, anger and vengefulness, and what I once said in one of My words holds true: "If you want to see Satan in person, look at a vainly decked out miss or a jealous woman!"
Indeed, a woman only ruled by passions is a personified fury. For with a vengeful and angry man, reason in the end usually prevails. But with a woman, there is not longer any reasoning with the head, and only the heart, being the seat of all that is either best or worst, is the guide and carrier of all her designs and actions.
A woman, particularly when her position encourages her to vent her passions, is capable of ravaging the whole earth if she had the chance, and is capable of watching calmly as rivers of blood are flowing, and of spreading misery everywhere. It suffices her to know that her revenge is complete, that her would-be ambition leaves in her satanic soul the sweet realization: You are revenged!
Look at the history of your earth globe's mankind; since the female sex has ceased to be the subordinate one, since it has begun to step out of its true sphere, namely, home life, how much misery this sex has spread among mankind, be it in family life or in the life of the nation! Although it was this sex which was destined to receive from Me the palm of victory by virtue of its passive might of gentleness over the rash passions of the man, it now triumphs through the tricks of Satan, seduces and leads man, not to victory through love, but into perdition and total decline, through its lust for power! So much so that now I must again intervene and free the man from these chains entwined with thorns which were meant by Me to be roses, and to drive from the female heart these bad and evil passions through misery, poverty and sickness, so that My creation may again get onto the right track where woman shall be on this earth the helpmeet of man, the appeasing part, not the domineering and alone commanding one.
I have said all this in advance in order to show you what has become of the female sex, endowed by Me with so many noble qualities, and that only in few hearts there is room left for better feelings than ambition and love of finery.
I have shown you how a spark, little noticed in youth, once kindled into a fire can cause untold misery around it, so that you may realize what you have to shun yourselves and what you shall protect your children against.
Let us now view the picture from another side, namely, how I actually created woman and what she was endowed with so as not to be a hindrance to My design.
I will now present to you woman in her four phases, how she should be, how she can only on this road become My child and thus completely fulfill her task on this earth.
I have already given you a hint as to what must be observed in the upbringing. Endeavor to preserve a girl's heart gentle, awaken in time love, the all-appeasing love for Me and for the fellowman, and arouse compassion in her. For when a heart learns to feel another's sufferings, it tries to help as much as possible. Compassion keeps the heart soft and ready to help where it can and eliminates many other inordinate desires and thoughts that would otherwise usurp all the space in a proud heart.
Compassion leads to esteem, equality with the fellowman, and is diametrically opposed to pride, which is ruled by the delusion to be something better than others.
Compassion, this flower out of the crown of neighborly love, sweetens life, soothes every pain and gives comfort in all circumstances. And exactly whom did I endow with more means to exercise this compassion in the most effective way?
Did I not endow you, My lovely female children, with the most beautiful, softest forms, soft facial contours, soulful eyes whose glance, moved to tears by compassion, none of the stronger sex can resist?
Did I not endow you with a softer voice, whose endearing tone should breathe balm onto the wounds of others?
And to what use do most of you put all this! I must turn away My eyes from this picture which I could unroll before your gaze if I wanted to describe what is now being perpetrated with these divine gifts, which is truly not in My honor! But enough of this; let us return to our woman as I created her.
So watch over these most dangerous traits in the youthful heart of a girl. Once she has become a virgin it is too late even to think of eradicating wrongly guided urges. For in this flowering phase the female heart races with full sail towards its passions, namely, the as yet not clearly recognized status as mother and lifelong companion of a man. There she either sees all her glorious ideas of a domestic life realized and in the harbor of family life is able to think of other joys; or she is disappointed with everything, has to listen to the naked truth which she may never have heard before from the one mouth from which, she used to think earlier, only milk and honey would flow towards her. And if it should indeed be so, it is a just payment for the wrong upbringing the girl or virgin has received, for the harm of which the responsibility lies with the parents rather than the child.
However, it is precisely through the burden of someone else's fault that one becomes wise, and thus the harsh reality perhaps mellows the passions of a newlywed and she will, as a mother, wiser through experience, not bring up her children in the same way she herself had been brought up.
Thus I always guide the erring hearts through personal disagreeable experiences back to the spot from where they should not have strayed earlier.
Then the mother by the child's sickbed looks up to Me, turning her heart away from the vain things of the world and going within; and she often realizes with a shudder how desolate and empty it is there. These are then her days of trial and resignation, and while the virgin believed the merry life would continue undiminished in married life, instead of nights spent amid dance and pleasure she finds joyless days and nights full of sorrow, troubles of unimagined significance.
The eye, once moist with tears of joy and sending the first look of love to her life's companion, may now be again full of tears by the sickbed or deathbed of a darling. There the tears of joy led away from Me and My words, but the tears of sorrow are the first road signs back to Me. Then I often stand with outstretched arms in a solitary chamber beside a mourning mother, see the mother-heart bleed, see her hopes collapse like a pack of cards, and - o fatherly joy! From the ruins of the dashed hopes a heavenly flower shoots up; it is the flower of faith and of the quiet surrender to My will.
That which had not ever been possible through pleasures and worldly amusements, that which had in vain rebounded from the deaf ears of the girl and virgin, here at the sick-bed of a child it begins to blossom. What even love failed to achieve, fear has accomplished; it restored to Me a heart which in different circumstances would have been lost.
Do you, My dear children, now know My designs and that I also know how to lead My not so tractable children?
In the great hubbub of life I often let many of your sex stagger from one entertainment to the next, from one enjoyment to another. However, rest assured, whenever I am concerned about saving a soul, I detect the moment and the little bird which hitherto freely and merrily had been whirring about in the air of pleasures, sits there with drooping wings and completely forgets that it has wings to escape the earth because that which it loved best is bound to the earth.
So the mother continues on her path of thorns, is seldom awarded for that which she has endured for her children, but for this very reason she realizes best the vainness of the world and of her erroneous ideas and wrong habits and gradually turns to Me. And when once au things sexual have been put to rest, the woman either begins to find a better support in her earlier less appreciated life's companion or she will seek support solely with Me, where she will find enough solace and help.
Therefore, My dear children! You, most of whom have already trodden the path of tears and suffering, you, on whom I have taken mercy, giving you My word, do not lose heart! You will not be charged so highly for your past as one or the other perhaps believes, and I will sweeten your future as far as possible, lest you forget Me and My teaching.
Let this be said to you for your solace by Him, who loves and blesses you like all His children! Amen.