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January-March, 2015

Awakening Through My Special Relationships — Part III

by Rev. Linda LaCasse, O.M.C.

  — Stephanie —

This article is the third in a series of articles regarding Holy Spirit’s use of my special relationships for the purpose of healing and the miracles I have experienced as a result. The previous article left off with my divorcing my second husband. This article proceeds to cover my special relationship with my daughter, Stephanie, as we began our life on our own.

Two years ago, in the spring of 2012, while in the process of divorcing for a second time, I was led by Holy Spirit to where I now reside, a spacious, comfortable two-bedroom apartment. Stephanie had long wanted to live alone with me and this was our chance to be free to live our lives peacefully, or so I thought. I had made it quite clear to her that if she were to live with me, she must be drug free. Naturally, I believed her when she insisted she was.  It was no different from believing the ego when it insisted that I had separated from God. Guilt prevented the truth from entering into my awareness. How could I not let her live with me? And just as I found myself in hell from believing the ego’s lie, I soon found myself in hell in my new home, for Steph was continuing to use drugs, especially her drug of choice, heroin.

The insanity, which I had presumed would come to an end after divorcing her step-dad and it was just Stephanie and me, had returned. I could no longer deny Stephanie’s addiction. I could only continue to deny that it was real, just as I had done while married to her step-dad, just as Jesus taught me to do in ACIM. It was the only thing I knew for certain that I was to do, give it all to Holy Spirit to judge for me. I experienced some crazy things with this girl; did things to enable her that other parents would judge as absolutely appalling but by His healing Grace, I simply gave all my thoughts of what appeared to be to Him to judge. ACIM was my absolute life line, keeping me from drowning in the ego’s sea of fear. Shortly before this time, I actually had a sleep dream that the Course itself saved me from drowning as I held the book up high out of the water after falling off a boat at night into darkness and was swiftly and safely moved through the water by an invisible force to an embankment where my two daughters were there to meet me. 

Note: I am very grateful for and thankful to Larry Glenz for sharing his story of his son, Kevin’s heroin addiction in his book Forgiving Kevin. I had the honor of thanking Larry in person last April in Chicago. He so bravely and courageously shared that he often did not listen to Holy Spirit’s repeated guidance to let Him take care of Kevin. I was so grateful to know that despite my second husband’s attempts to do all that Larry had tried to help Kevin, I was correct in what I had heard Holy Spirit guiding me to do — let Him be in control and just forgive what appeared to be, as well as forgive the hell I endured from my husband’s rage, anger and frustration with me for not doing what he wanted and needed me to. Larry’s story was my confirmation from Holy Spirit that I did exactly what I was supposed to despite the ego trying all it could to make me fear otherwise.

That summer of 2012, Steph came to me crying for help. She was in excruciating pain from trying to withdraw from heroin herself. She begged me to take her to buy some just to ease the pain. She’d passed a kidney stone a few months prior and cried that the pain of withdrawals was way worse than passing that stone.  Spirit guided me to take her to the emergency room. Living in a different city now, I wasn’t going to take her to the hospital where she spent the evening she’d attempted suicide nor to the hospital further away where her heart was revived in spring 2011 from an overdose. Instead, I took her to the hospital where this journey of hers all began, to where she was born, St. Mary’s. (“Mother Mary sang to me, speaking words of wisdom, Let It Be.”) She received the help she needed to get through the withdrawals but knew she wasn’t strong enough to resist the ever present temptation to use.

Drug testing was the ticket, or at least it was for quite a lengthy period of time. Stephanie managed to hold down her job and test negative for any drugs and appeared to be doing very well. I had become employed on a part time basis. I continued to study the Course and practice the workbook lessons daily as well as true forgiveness constantly. I was experiencing miracles in the work place, so very aware of many lifelong fears being undone. I was also quite aware that I was meant to be there, to see all Holy Spirit had to show me, what I had been healed of and what I still needed to see. I was afforded a limitless supply of forgiveness opportunities between my co-workers and the hundreds of customers I encountered daily, all for which I was truly grateful and thankful. My healing, along with Stepanie’s, by forgiving everything that appeared, was my only focus; ACIM my only passion.

I spent all my free time with Holy Spirit, grateful and thankful for my peaceful dwelling, all the while very aware of Him calling me to learn absolute dependence on and trust in Him. This was the ultimate lesson He was preparing me for. It was what I knew I had resisted by getting married the first time at the age of 22. I’d always been terrified of the thought of having to be responsible for myself, to have to know how to do everything and becoming destitute because I believed I knew nothing. Imagine then how happy and relieved I was to read in the Course Jesus’ words telling me that this was precisely what I was supposed to believe!!

At some point last summer, 2013, I could no longer deny myself the peace I so deserved. Stephanie was once again using heroin and had been for quite a while. She’d totaled her car in the spring, another brush with death from which she yet again walked away totally unscathed, let alone alive. She’d lost her job. She was staying out all night only Spirit knows where and now He was telling me it was time for change. I trusted Holy Spirit when I heard Him tell me that the time had come for Stephanie to find somewhere else to live and He provided the answer, a miracle, because I was willing to do as He guided. I didn’t have to kick her out after all! Holy Spirit arranged it all without my effort because I have truly accepted the one function I have, my only purpose, releasing my judgment and giving it to Him to judge for me. 

Holy Spirit brought Stephanie’s dad, my first husband, back into our picture. He’d stayed away as he lives out of state but mostly because he and Stephanie had a long and painful history in their attempts to communicate. But once I stepped back, totally prepared to let Stephanie go wherever Spirit knew she needed to be, He stepped in and used her dad to guide her to safety. A miracle indeed!

It happened on a trip Stephanie took with her sister to meet their dad and his fiancé at their dad’s parents’ home in July, 2013.  Her dad and his entire family witnessed the insanity I’d protected him from for years for the very reason I divorced him; he totally resisted dealing with uncomfortable feelings, let alone uncomfortable situations and seemed to always get upset when I requested his help. 

Miracles are the result of the nightmare that ensued during that visit. I can only attribute them to Holy Spirit using the illusion I’d made up that I diligently and vigilantly chose non-stop for years to give to Him to judge for me! I knew true forgiveness was the only way to undo the ego’s ability to use the illusion of Stephanie to torture me with its lies of guilt and fear. One miracle was that Stephanie’s dad stepped up and with Spirit’s guidance, found one of the nation’s best rehab facilities in Minnesota, which his insurance covered, not once but twice. I’m leaving out so many details of countless forgiveness opportunities but suffice it to say, I was grateful and thankful for each and every one of them, despite the pain, for I trusted only goodness could come and it did come for Stephanie and me and her dad.

Another miracle was Stephanie making her connection with her higher power during her second stint in rehab in January-February of 2014. She is aware now of what it means to surrender. She used to think it meant to give in to a person of authority, to relinquish her control, to sacrifice her will but she no longer sees it this way! She is experiencing a new found freedom in that she is aware that she has control over nothing but her power to choose which voice to listen to. She knows that her higher power can control everything if she lets it be and that His control can bring nothing but happiness, love, peace and joy; all that she sought but, of course, could not find in drugs or in the ego’s lies.

I embraced the truth early on as ACIM student that I cannot be healed alone and I dedicated and devoted my commitment to being healed to my baby girl, Stephanie, for she needs me to do this work as much as I do. I have always been grateful and thankful for knowing that I made this commitment for all God’s children as well, for all minds are one with God.

In closing, I shall include another miracle: Just as Stephanie constantly reflected back to me all my guilt and fear from the time she became aware of being back in a body a few weeks after her birth, after 23 years she now reflects my healing mind, all my thoughts of fear changed to thoughts of love. Our special, unholy relationship has been changed, healed to a holy one.

© 2015, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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