By Elizabeth Towne.
One day it suddenly flashed across my mind that I AM THE SUN of God! That was to me a glorious idea that took possession of me and literally transformed me by the renewing of my mind.
That is a little trick idea have – give them a lodging and they will make a whole new house for you, a “house not made with hands.”
“I AM THE SUN of God” made me all over in no time. I will tell you some of the changes it made in me: I used to be very “sensitive”; so much so that I didn’t know my own mind more than half the time; and I was always getting my feelings hurt; though I was generally too proud to show it.
I tried desperately to conquer my feelings and keep from being hurt, but success did not crown my efforts nor even perch upon my banner.
At last I grew tired of coddling my feelings and I told them, with considerable righteous indignation, to keep on feeling hurt till they got tired and quit – they would receive no more attention from me! They did get tired and quit. The sun warmed up my feelings and happified them for good and all.
This is the way of it: I said to myself, “If I AM THE SUN of Good, then my one reason for being is simply to radiate – to shine – to send out good thought.”
Now, you see, that is just where I had been making a vital mistake. I had always tried to be a Moon instead of a Sun. The Moon is cold, dark, sterile, receptive, only shedding reflected light. I had been all the time receiving everything – other people’s ideas and opinions, and even all kinds of hurts from them! And, as if this was not enough receiving, I daily besought God to give, give, GIVE me the Holy Ghost, not to mention the hundred and one other favors I begged! – of Him and other folks.
And all this time I was really a SUN, the Sun of God, made for the one purpose of sending out, instead of receiving. I had “life in myself,” as “the Father hath life in Himself.”
In order to outgrow entirely all that sensitiveness I had simply to remember when my feelings were injured, that I AM a Sun made to shine, instead of a Moon made to receive hurts from without.
Every human being is literally a Sun of Good, made to radiate. If he will attend strictly to the business of sending out Good Will, as the sun radiates beams, he will soon find his feelings under his control.
Suppose every time somebody on this planet grumbled at Old Sol, he were to curl up within himself and fail to send forth his rays. If he were “sensitive” like most people that is what he would do. But Sol is too wise a god for that. He attends strictly to his own business of shining. So positively does he shine, and so fully is he absorbed in doing his best, that he shines upon not only the “just,” who appreciate his shine, but he shines joyously on the “unjust,” who only grumble in return. So positive is that blesses old Sol that he never feels a grumble! His shine just meets the grumble and transmutes it before it touches him.
The reason we get hurt by the unkind words of those about us is that we forget to shine.
Excerpt from the book “Just How To Wake The Solar Plexus” by Elizabeth Towne, 1926