Miracles News

July-September, 2012

The Mirror

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

Rev. Melissa Ketchum 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.

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