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Reflections on Sickness: Choosing Love or Fear

by Rev. Joanne Goodrich, Ordained Ministerial Counselor

I have been thinking about “sickness” and how it is one of the sneakiest tools in the ego’s arsenal for attack. Why? Because sickness tries to persuade me that I am a body and separate from everyone else.

About five years after I started studying A Course in Miracles, I became very, very ill. I was told to get my affairs in order because it was likely I that I did not have long to live.

Lying in the MRI machine for the first time, I heard the banging noises and kept very still. Suddenly, I felt an otherworldly light envelop me and heard a question: “Do you want to come home now?”

My initial reaction was one of relief and gratitude: I had been so sick that my days were almost unbearable. I wanted so badly to leave this body behind. I remembered, too, that, “I am not a body.” (W-199-220) and that I had dedicated myself to living the prayer, “I am here only to be truly helpful. I am here to represent Him Who sent me.” (T-2.V.A.18:2-3)

So, I didn’t ask for the healing of my body but only if I had more to learn in this body: I was here to serve. My mind was completely willing to choose God and to follow His plan for me.

Over the next six months, tests began to look inconclusive; then, benign. I went through the process of major surgery and recovery. My body healed. Many years passed. Slowly but surely, the Holy Spirit continued to awaken me with gentle patience. My mind started to heal and my faith in God expanded, bringing more peace.

Almost twenty years later, my body is still “here” but, as the Course says, “…you have not utterly forgotten the body… You are not asked to let this happen for more than an instant, yet it is in this instant that the miracle of Atonement happens. Afterwards you will see the body again, but never quite the same. And every instant that you spend without awareness of it gives you a different view of it when you return.” (T-18.VII.2:1,3-5)

This has, indeed, been my experience. The Holy Spirit uses everything — relationships, situations, the body — as the classroom for teaching me about forgiveness and my fulfilling my purpose here.

The ego still plays its games of attack through the lens of “sickness.” My body gets sick, but I no longer think of this as dire; rather, it seems laughable.

Imagine my surprise when I had a flash of insight from the Holy Spirit recently about the symptoms of Type-2 Diabetes my body experiences! Brain fog, exhaustion, nausea, and headaches are hard to ignore. They don’t feel funny although, in the fog, they can feel absurd.

I asked the Holy Spirit for insight and guidance because the symptoms were becoming more acute. I felt the “fear” and was not willing to choose it. I understood that “There are decisions to make here, and they must be made whether they are illusions or not. Therefore, it is not the form of the question that matters, nor how it is asked. The form of the answer, if given by God, will suit your need as you see it.” (S-1.I.2:6-7)

I brought my fear to the Holy Spirit, saying, “My greatest fear is losing my ability to choose Love not fear.”  Here’s what He told me:

Remember you are not a body. You are Spirit.

There is no order of difficulty in the problems you face: they are all the same. This is why there is no order of difficulty in miracles.

Remember that a miracle is an extension of Love and that only the Truth is real.

Every single thing, no matter what it is, boils down to one choice: Love or fear.

Have faith that once your choice has been truly made it cannot be un-made.

Give your little willingness to Me and I will do the rest.

For me, diabetes is a nudge to remember forgiveness. It reminds me that it is a way that the ego tries to defend itself in me.
I have been in Type 2’s thrall for so long that I could hardly see it as an ego attack. Yet, my body is a wholly neutral thing.

I am asked to choose Love in every situation, including mundane choices about food, exercise, stress, etc. From a practical perspective, I recognize that every choice related to my body is the same: Does the choice I make have a neutral effect (reflecting the body’s neutrality) or does it make the ego’s message of sickliness and death seem real?

Recognizing this simple thing as it pertains to a chronic illness has been huge. My body may be “sick” and even “sicker” (as measured by doctors and symptoms).
I may be guided to make choices regarding my body (food, medication, etc.) and this is okay. (See T-2.IV.4:5-8.)

My only function is to forgive, to choose the Atonement for myself. Making this choice puts the Holy Spirit in charge and I am at peace, no matter what my physical body experiences.

In choosing Love, I am seated at the table Love has set, “…a table covered with a spotless cloth, set in a quiet garden where no sound but singing and a softly joyous whispering is ever heard. ...I will join you there, as long ago I promised and promise still.” (T-19.IV.A(i).16:1,4)

I am utterly willing to see things differently and am so grateful that I am never alone – and always right on time.

© 2026, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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