Miracles News

April-June, 2012

Moving Our of the Darkness into the Light: It’s Called Awakening

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

Rev. Linda Wisniewski I don’t know if you ever experience this, but after faithfully practicing ACIM lessons, giving my willingness to Holy Spirit to look at everything that didn’t bring me peace, I suddenly went into a deep funk. Call it disillusionment, despondency, crashing. It felt horrible, lonely, scarey and disorienting to say the least. I went into a panic. What if all that I am learning is not the truth? What if God isn’t real? What am I to do?

I’ve been so diligent in my practice and have been giving my willingness to Spirit, and look at me. What’s the use? Nothing seems to be working. Poor me. If I can’t trust Holy Spirit and I learned not to put my trust in the illusion, then what?

Well this is how I felt, but not for long. I thought that no matter what I am experiencing in the present, Holy Spirit has been my Guide. Why would I think Spirit would abandon me in this darkest of moments?

So I did the only thing I could and cried out, “Help me Spirit. I feel so lost, so alone, so confused, so unsettled.”

And I waited. What else could I do? Oh sure, I could find something to distract me. But I knew from past experience that would only delay the awakening process and probably end up sending me into a deeper funk.

Then I seemed to get an inner prompt to go to the section in the Manual for Teachers on Trust in the section titled, “What are the Characteristics of God’s Teachers?” So I did and lo and behold my eyes focused on the seventh stage of Trust in the Development of Trust on page 11 of the Manual for Teachers:

“…’A period of unsettling.’ Now must the teacher of God understand that he did not really know what was valuable and what was valueless. …Yet his own sorting out was meaningless in teaching him the difference. The idea of sacrifice, so central to his own thought system, had made it impossible for him to judge. He thought he learned willingness, but now he sees that he does not know what the willingness is for. And now he must attain a state that may remain impossible to reach for a long, long time. He must learn to lay all judgment aside, and ask only what he really wants in every circumstance.” (M-4.7:1-8)

Believe it or not, this was comforting for me and got me out of the funk. The development of trust section in the Manual seems like a blueprint for the awakening process — the stages of awakening from the dream. For the past few years I have been, with the help of Holy Spirit, sorting out the valueless from the valuable and have been relinquishing the valueless.

Did I really think I was done? Am I free of judgments and attachments to all that is not real? Not yet. I am still mindful of the judgments I have toward a brother and the attachment I have to holding onto this body. There is still much fear to the thought that I have to one day let this body go. And I have a choice; I could either fight it all the way and suffer or, I can also ask Holy Spirit to work with me on this, my greatest fear.

Again, I was comforted by Section 12, paragraph 5 in the Manual for Teachers titled,
“How many Teachers of God are needed to save the World?”

“The central lesson is always this; that what you use the body for it will become to you. Use it for sin or for attack, which is the same as sin, and you will see it as sinful. …Use it to bring the Word of God to those who have it not, and the body becomes holy. Because it is holy it cannot be sick, nor could it die. When its usefulness is done, it is laid by, and that is all. The mind makes this decision, as it makes all decisions that are responsible for the body’s condition. Yet the teacher of God does not make this decision alone. …God’s Voice will tell him when he has fulfilled his role, just as it tells him what his function is. He does not suffer either in going or remaining.”

Reading this was also so helpful and comforting in letting go of the attachment I have had to making the body my home. I see how I have used it for attack and how that made me sick. I see that I can use it for Holy Spirit’s purpose — to extend God’s Word into the world and serve in the awakening of the Sonship. What a holy function that is.

Because my only purpose is to awaken from the dream and return to my true Home, I can wait with patience and without anxiety because I am promised by Spirit that the outcome is certain. And the period of unsettling is only another stage in the awakening process before the period of achievement. This is cause for joy, not fear. Thank you, Holy Spirit.

So the next time I am in a funk, I will know not to panic; it’s only another period of unsettling which gives me another opportunity to give up what’s valueless and know that I am waking up.

Rev. Linda Wisniewski is a Pathways of Light minister living in Plymouth, Wisconsin.

Has this page been helpful to you?
Your contribution in support of this site is greatly appreciated. To make a tax deductible contribution or become a member online, go to http://www.pathwaysoflight.org/polshop/home.php?cat=254.
Or send a check or money order to Pathways of Light, 6 Oak Court, Ormond Beach, FL 32174-2623 (USD only, please) Thank you for your support.