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Turn It Over

by Rev. Georgeann Medved, O.M.C.

My husband, Joe went for a routine cardiac stress test in late April. The results showed that he needed two stints and he was scheduled to go to Flint two days later for that procedure. That night I called neighbors and asked them to watch our house as we would be gone approximately five days. We traveled to Flint the next day and stayed in a hotel. He was told he would be able to drive three days after the procedure so he would be able to drive us home. That night we offered prayers for a successful procedure and turned our will and our lives over to the care of God.

The next day, during surgery I became weary. I had been having severe muscle spasms for a month and the hospital provided only hard chairs and benches to sit on. I laid down on a bench and prayed and fell asleep. I was awakened and summoned to the recovery room where Joe’s cardiologist explained to us that he would need double bypass surgery as one artery was completely blocked and the other 70%.

Two days later he was sent to the hospital for pre-surgical testing. His surgery was to be four days later on Tuesday. When he left, I prayed as we had much to do and not a lot of time.

The next morning we went home and dumped our dirty laundry and packed for a three week stay. We left again on Monday for his Tuesday surgery. Relatives and neighbors prayers and promises of help were with us.

Tuesday brought the peace of Christ for Joe as he was wheeled into surgery and the same horrible waiting room conditions for me. I spent his time in surgery praying for him, our family, friends, neighbors and hotel staff. I again turned my will and my life over to the care of God.

After four and a half hours he was safely out of surgery and I would be able to see him in two hours. Thank God! When taken to Joe’s room, I was told I could see him for 10 minutes, then leave. I was left in there for over an hour. I lightly touched his right shoulder several times and talked to him and prayed. He slept peacefully.

At 5:30 p.m. I returned to the hotel and reported to the manager then started phoning people to report that he was alright. At 9 p.m. I peacefully fell asleep in Holy Spirit’s arms and slept until 4 a.m.

Four weeks after the bypass surgery we are safely nestled in our home, thanks to very helpful hotel personnel, family, friends and neighbors who prayed for us, drove for us, brought us food, mowed our lawn and did other heavy work for us. They are true heroes and we love them. We ask God’s blessings on them in our daily prayers.

I am still working on the muscle spasms. Hopefully they will stop soon. Meanwhile, I am baking cookies for all of the neighbors who helped us and writing letters of gratitude to family and friends for their help. Joe is back to his routine of walking a mile a day and started cardiac rehabilitation.

God does work miracles! God does work in mysterious ways. Without Him we could not have done this.

Rev. Georgeann Medved is a Pathways of Light minister living in Columbiaville, Michigan

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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The Purpose of My To Do List

by Rev. Mary Gerard Lenihan, O.M.C.

Today I started feeling overwhelmed with my to do list and I asked for help. First, Holy Spirit revealed to me a bit about self-hatred and how the ego goes to great lengths to preserve self-hatred, for it keeps the ego in charge. I wrote a whole article on that experience!

Then Holy Spirit said, “Mary the ego tries to make life meaningful by giving you a to do list. Your activities today are not a to do list. They are your ministry. Don’t be in a rush to finish your to do list. Be with your to do list. It is an opportunity to do God’s work. That is its only purpose. It is like having a ‘street ministry.’ The disciples walked from town to town among the people, empowered by Holy Spirit so people could meet Holy Spirit. That is what all of your activities in the world are for — so people can meet Holy Spirit. Stop feeling like this daily stuff is getting in the way of your ministry; that you have to get it all done as soon as possible so you can get back to work. This is your work. It is your ministry! All of it!” Then I remembered awhile ago asking for help with all of this and Holy Spirit opened up to Lesson 353: “My eyes, my tongue, my hands, my feet today have but one purpose; to be given Christ to use to bless the world with miracles.”

When I opened up to that a couple of months ago, I felt I had been given my purpose. Thank you for being willing to step back and let Inspiration guide. It isn’t the popular path, but is the path that I can trust.

Rev. Mary Gerard Lenihan is a Pathways of Light minister living in St. Louis, Missouri. She is author of the books Visions of Illumination, The Mentor Within and the inspiring new CD Album WNYHOO Now!. Web site: http://www.pauseforinspiration.org

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Divine Mother and Divine Father as Symbols for Transformation

by Rev. Dennis Gaither, M.D., O.M.C.

Symbols can be so helpful as bridges that can help us reach from the world of form we find ourselves in to the formlessness of our true Reality, but they can also become an obstacle when they become an end in themselves. Symbols can help us focus, help us quiet our inner chatter and remind us of the sacredness that is within us.

I have a meditation space in my bedroom; there is an altar there with a candle and picture of Jesus, one in which he looks out with very piercing eyes. There are times, especially when I am feeling some upset and needing to focus, that I find sitting before that image, meeting that gaze, to be very centering. Do I absolutely need this? No, certainly not. Is it helpful? Sometimes yes. Why is it helpful? I feel it reminds me of my intention to focus, come into presence, and deeply connect with the inner Teacher. Is there anything truly special about the picture, the altar, and the candle? Not really, but because of the intention with which I placed them there, they are helpful to me as bridges.

Recently after a very lively conversation about Divine Mother and Divine Father as both symbols and felt-sense presence, I asked for some guidance, some clarification, about the previous evening’s discussion. What follows is an offering based upon what I received in response.

Symbols always represent something beyond themselves — this is obvious. In using them it is important to always keep this in mind, as they can easily become idols that are “worshipped” in their own right. And yet the act of honoring what a symbol represents will reinforce that which is honored. Every symbol is filled with the meaning we give it, not less so if that meaning is given automatically based on past conditions or if in full consciousness of choice. The difference is that the less awareness there is about the nature of symbols, the more compulsory they will be in terms of the reactions they evoke.

All symbols carry dual meanings within this level of experience that we feel ourselves to be in now. It does not matter whether it is an object, a name, a word or grouping of words, or even an abstract idea. They are all icons for either the thought system of ego, of separation, or that of the Voice for Love. The symbol itself is within the ego’s framework, and initially will most readily point to that which maintains itself within that thought system. But every symbol can also be used for another purpose when our meaning for it is surrendered, and the Voice for Love is allowed to replace it with a new meaning. This is the process of forgiveness. Whenever we find a symbol to be disturbing or limiting, there is a gift of healing present as well. What disturbs is from within us. It takes great diligence and commitment to practice continually turning our own meanings over to that Inner Voice, but it is the most direct path that leads us beyond all symbols to our true Home in and of God.

Divine Father and Divine Mother are both symbols that may help or hinder. As symbols of male and female, they can reinforce the idea of separation along gender lines as that polarity forms the basis of our special relationships. We project upon them the fantasies and dreams of specialness, power, grandiosity and self-hatred that we carry within our own minds.

They can also be used by the Voice for Love to help us see and forgive our projections and thus heal our hidden self-hatred. As we begin to open our hearts to Love, either Divine Father or Divine Mother can be the portal through which we most readily allow in that experience. As we deepen along our Path, the polarity no longer serves us and the desire to seemingly turn from the one more familiar to the one less so for a time becomes a useful stepping-stone. We can use the love connection more readily appreciated with one to look at the resistance — which is always based in fear — we hold towards the other. Whatever the apparent form may be, it is a small gap of ego that is clung to out of fear of loss of self in the fathomless sea of God’s Love. It is the self afraid of Self. Its utter formlessness terrifies that which has become identified with form; yet as we begin to remember our True Nature, we cannot help but be drawn like a moth to that flame that will disintegrate all that we think we are.

If we allow ourselves to be guided through this process by Holy Spirit, what seems to be a violent disintegration by fire is but a gentle warming that allows us to shed layer upon layer of that which “protects” us from what we think is fearful, but is really what we most deeply desire. The path is not a rejection of anything that we or anyone else has made, but simply a turning toward that which we truly are and can never not be. Used in this way, the symbols we have made can become wonder-full devices that help us cross the obstacles we seem to encounter but that really we have made, and gently lay them aside when they no longer serve a purpose. And for that we are very grateful for the Divine Mother/Father for the help they lend us in opening our hearts to the Divine within us.

From A Course in Miracles:

We say “God is,” and then we cease to speak, for in that knowledge words are meaningless. There are no lips to speak them, and no part of mind sufficiently distinct to feel that it is now aware of something not itself. It has united with its Source. And like its Source Itself, it merely is. (W-pI.169.5:4-7)

Rev. Dennis Gaither, M.D., O.M.C., is a Pathways of Light minister living in Mt. Vernon, Washington.

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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The Mirror

by Rev. Melissa Ketchum, O.M.C.

Holy Spirit finds a way to speak to us and guide us even if we have tied a blindfold over our eyes and have shoved wads of cotton in our ears. Over the past few weeks since my ordination on May 20th, I have been in a frantic panic to start my ministry-based business — get my website on search engines, find every inexpensive advertising source available, check my email fifty times a day for wedding leads …or any leads. I was consumed. Obsessed. Being an unemployed single mother with a mortgage and two kids, I felt panicked to “make money.”

During my panicked state, I discovered strange things happening to me. First, I wasn’t praying or meditating as much as usual, and I wasn’t hearing Holy Spirit. I started to feel lost. I rationalized this at first, assuring myself that this was a temporary, necessary burst of energy that was an inevitable part of living in a money-based world. Perhaps I could have continued my “needing-to-make-money-charade” indefinitely, but I noticed something else disturbing happening to me as well. After a year since the occurrence, I began to once again grow hateful, angry and bitter at my ex-fiancé, who stuck me with some wedding bills that I had placed on my credit card. The wedding didn’t happen, but the bills needed paid anyway, and it was my credit at stake.

Here I was revisiting year-old lost funds, and blaming the “evil” person, who dropped the bills in my lap, for my current financial situation. So the attacks began — hateful texts and even more hateful thoughts. In the midst of my attack, the mirror concept popped into my mind and I asked myself, “How is this reflecting what I need to work on inside myself?” “Nonsense,” my ego retorted, “I would never do that to anyone! I am merely a victim of a terrible person.” I judged. I felt justified. The situation with the ex-fiancé, of course, came to no satisfactory resolution. We merely rehashed the same tired circle of blame and judgment.

It wasn’t until today that I looked in the mirror. The blindfold was gently removed from my eyes during the teleconference for Spiritual Relationships Counseling training. I brought my mirror question up during the class, “What if people don’t see the connection between what they draw into their lives and their own unhealed places? What if the mirror concept just isn’t valid for some situations?” These words from a fellow student sent me into a tail-spin of self-examination, “If you spot it, you got it.” Thanks Paul.

I began to replay the past three weeks in my mind. My greed. My feelings of lack of abundance. My fear. My self-doubt. My lack of love for my brothers. And I began to picture what my ministry would look like if I created it from this place. Holy Spirit, in a rush of teaching, reminded me what my Function is — to love my brother unconditionally, so that we can both be saved, and in return save the brotherhood.

Now I forgive myself for what I never really did and return to who I Truly Am. I remembered my first love, which is writing, so I write. And I will make an announcement at my ACIM group and at the Unity Church that I attend, “Free counseling for anyone who is interested in healing.” For those who come, I thank in advance for allowing me to practice the art of loving. The rest will work itself out.

But above all else, I’ll never forget — the mirror is always clear if we are willing to look.

Rev. Melissa Ketchum is a Pathways of Light minister living in Hubbard, Ohio.

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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