Eternal life is often portrayed as something to get to, a destination that lies in our future, but wouldn’t a wiser perspective be to think of one’s existence not at the beginning of eternity, or the end of eternity, but right smack in the MIDDLE of it?

This is a wise perception; given you have eternity to work with, there is little point to envisioning an end-stage that will never come. There is also little point in feeling inadequate and inept because you feel you might be only at the beginning, or near the beginning, with so much left to go and perhaps not feeling up to the task or challenge given the difficulties of life you have already experienced and found to be so hard. We can reassure you that human life is an anomaly, it is a troubled area, and that is why you were created, to come in and heal it. So by definition, this will be difficult and unpleasant work simply through encountering and inevitably experiencing firsthand what it means to suffer. That is not the norm, most beings in existence have much better lives than you do. You are taking on a challenge and making a personal sacrifice to put yourselves in harm’s way, to work on the problem of evil knowing you will likely miss the mark through ignorance and deception, and may well be corrupted in the bargain to participate in the evildoing and incur karmic penalties as well. This happens frequently to the lightworkers who come down from a sojourn in the light full of high ideals and expectations that this life will be the one when they make a breakthrough. We are rooting for your success and can tell you it is feasible and can happen if you are diligent and persevere; if you stay focused and use your time wisely and well, you can win—that can be your touchstone. The art of living is making good use of your time so that on balance you are doing more that is productive than not. Times of rest are not wasted but times that involve backpedaling and decline are an error that will have consequences and become a burden in having to right the ship and make up for lost time. This happens many times with people’s lives because of the challenge they face and the power of the opposition always seeking to make things difficult, to undermine and undercut human achievement. Slow and steady will win the race just as surely as attempting to apply and maintain maximum effort for the duration—the latter is not only exhausting but an unnecessarily burdensome lifestyle. There are time considerations and time constraints as well. You do not have unlimited time to work with here in order for the human enterprise to continue. You must make sufficient strides within the next few years in order to win the day and not have to witness the annihilation of humanity in the physical and lose the Earth to the interlopers. What is needed is not a frantic, desperate all-out assault, but a measured and consistent diligence to stay the course and keep working and using your intelligence and divine partnership to be a force multiplier in your favor. This we have helped you with and will continue to do so; it is better to be thorough than to overhurry and lose by taking shortcuts that leave you vulnerable in not preparing a proper foundation of strength to help you go the distance in what you are facing as a challenge.