April-June, 2018
I ask myself this all the time. Why me? What is so holy about me that He has given me what so many others lack? What have I done of any real good that entitles me to miracles? His miracles.
I’ve known, from the moment I first opened A Course in Miracles that the words were already resonating within me even as I read the first principle of miracles, “There is no order of difficulty in miracles.”
Since that day fifteen years ago, things began to change in my life. I had studied other spiritual philosophies, religions and twelve-step programs.
I come from a distinctly traumatic family background that dog-whipped me out of the horrible safety of my childhood in a way that no child should ever have to experience. I was completely on my own at the age of seventeen — no parents; basically just an orphan. I had to fend for myself. So I did. And in fending for myself I learned a great and unforgiving lesson — God was punishing me. I never questioned it. I survived as best I could and in ways that I sometimes look back on with sadness and regret.
Twenty-three years and five different therapists later I found the Course. Or, perhaps I should say, it found me. I’ve heard people say that “Religion is for people who are afraid of going to hell; spirituality is for people that have already been there.” And since I was, I believe, in the kind of hell this quote talks about, I had nowhere else to go. I belonged…nowhere.
So…yes! I do believe the Course found me. That was the first miracle. I was “found.” And since I had nowhere to go, I started dabbling with the lessons in the Course. I found myself understanding, for the first time in my cursed life, that what I was reading in this holy text was exactly how I felt growing up as a child; even well before I slipped through the cracks of a broken home and became lost to the rest of the world. I remember that nothing in my childhood world made sense. Good things happened to criminals while tragedy visited itself upon the kindest souls.
I realized, as I continued to be drawn in by the lessons in the Course, always being the child that asked, “Why?” I asked why animals didn’t have souls like us? I wondered why the death of my father was “final.” I was told I would never hear from him or see him again. I asked, “Why not?” I was told that God, “...took him to Heaven.” I retorted with, ”Who says so! Why was it God that took my family? Why wasn’t it the devil instead?” I was forever the “why” child.
A Course in Miracles has saved me from living in that hell I used to call me. It’s answered every question I ever had about life. It has explained every “why” I ever imagined. It has made me a softer, kinder version of my highest self. It helped the “why” child become the “how can I help?” Spirit. I don’t need to ask “why” anymore. The Course has taught me how to live as comfortably in the question today as I do in the answer.
The Course is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. The most fundamental, saving grace gift of the Course for me has been the gift from the Course of knowing that there is no such thing as a punishing God. I know today that God doesn’t do bad things. People do, or rather, they error. And I absolutely know, without hesitation or doubt, that had I not been given this knowledge from day one of reading the Course that I would never have opened the book again. To know, today, that my God and Holy Spirit want nothing but pure happiness for me has endowed me with the will to live to give.
I’ve had a thousand holy instants and a million miracles bestowed upon me. At night, before I go to sleep, I thank God, not only for the miracles I witnessed that day, but more so for the miracles that I didn’t witness — the miracles I didn’t see that day. Miracles are always happening in my life. There is no order of difficulty in miracles.
I cannot explain the Course. I can only do it. If you are new to the material, please give yourself the divine gift of just sticking with it. It is God’s offering to you, through the Holy Spirit. You will see, I promise. Today, I still sometimes wonder, “Why me?” Why am I so lucky to have this Course — I honestly believe it’s not really about me anymore. The hell that was me is now the one simply wanting to be of service on Holy Spirit’s behalf.
THAT’S “Why me!”
Diana Fielding is a student of A Course in Miracles living in Charleston, South Carolina. She attends the weekly Sunday ACIM teleconference with Pathways of Light Email: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
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