Good morning,
How in the “world” can Chicago experience a Friday, this past one, that was almost 50 degrees in temperature and three days later, have it be 17 below with wind chill?
Ah, it’s those dramatic, sudden, unexpected, overwhelming and disconnecting occurrences in our lives, whatever form in which they may appear, that catch us off guard and may cause enormous vulnerability, insecurity and conflict. At least, I must admit, they do for me. Catching me off guard, I go into self-doubt, worry and abject fear.
Although I understand or think I do ACIM at an intellectual level for all the reasons most of you know, I get the metaphysics, I get the core principles, I get the fact that there is no order of difficulty in miracles, no hierarchy of illusions.
Living it in each moment is the rub.
These last few weeks have been challenging:
CPA joined a firm, closed her own business, is now requiring far more documentation based on employer’s stipulations, etc.
Weather, my God, this winter has been “brutal”, my descriptor, “debilitating”, “impossible” to get Gracie out on a rhythmic and routine basis. So many seeming obstacles to overcome.
Our business. Mercurial for three years, debt, employees have left and been hired, such a “mixed bag”.
The B’s family saga erupts, continues, “drags on”, seems/appears to worsen.
AND, this is a big and, as committed as I am to holiness in all my relationships, situations emerge/erupt, disconnections occur that, once again, catch me off guard. And again, I can easily go into, “What the heck? Where did this come from? How did this happen?”
OK, enough of my litany of concerns.
I struggled to practice this past weekend and did myself a disservice by forgetting to ask Jesus to help me to forgive myself.
Everything I described above is my INTERPRETATION of events, occurrences, the world, everything. Projection makes perception and if I want to be peaceful, if I want to exhibit one who is the light of the world in mind, in form, so I may bring peace to every mind, I want to hunker down in my willingness to forgive, my only function, with salvation as my only purpose.
I recalled Lesson 95. I need not delay in practicing when I allow the ego to bludgeon me for not doing it or not doing it right.
I can get back on track.
I can remember the statement in The Test of Truth in the text that speaks to:
“I do not know what anything, including this, means. And so I do not know how to respond to it. And I will not use my own past learning as the light to guide me now.”
Page 298 in text, Chapter 14, Section XI.
I want a clean slate upon which God may share His Word.
I want an empty mind and heart.
Ah, think I will just continue to ask for help in forgiving myself for projecting my own sense of sin, my own guilt onto anything and everything and everyone else.
I take responsibility for everything I see today and accept I can change my mind at any time and experience peace. Then extend it.
Love,
Gayle
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