The ACIM Manual for Teachers says, “A teacher of God repeats his lessons until they are learned” But what are these lessons we ‘think’ we are supposed to be learning? Recently I once again found myself in a situation that I had repeated many times over the years. I recognized the situation clearly as it developed over time, and all the while I groaned to myself, “Why does this keep happening to me!”
It wasn’t until after much drama and confusion that I finally calmed down enough to really receive Holy Spirit’s guidance. The issue was not that I was repeating a lesson, but that I had never actually learned the ‘lesson’ in the first place, and every so often it would re-arise into my awareness as an opportunity to finally move beyond it’s seeming limiting effects.
As in most cases my ‘problem’ was disguised in the form of a special relationship, and so was my lesson. The ego had me convinced that the problem was in my relationship rather than in my mind. In fact, I got so involved in the blame-game that I started to believe my problem was actually real and that my partner was responsible for how I felt.
The Course explains that special relationships are mostly used by the ego as a means in which we can project the guilt we believe we have within ourselves onto another; thus bypassing the need to deal with it within ourselves. Because we project this guilt onto another it temporarily distracts us from our pain, and relieves us of our fear of punishment.
It also says, although we may repeat this ‘sin’ over and over with obviously distressing results, it does not lose its appeal (sort of like poking your tongue in a sore tooth). Thus, we create the impression that we are repeating unwanted patterns in our relationships again and again.
But the Course clarifies that guilt is simply but a mistake that can be easily corrected with Holy Spirit’s help. Once we change guilt’s status from ‘error’ to ‘mistake’ we will no longer repeat it; but merely stop and let it go.
With all of this in mind, I still couldn’t figure out what the lesson was that I was supposed to be learning, other than the recognition that I secretly felt guilty about something. After much reflection, asking and deep inner listening to God’s Voice, the lesson became crystal clear: The lesson that removes all fear is Love. And forgiveness is the means by which it is achieved.
The Course states: “Forgiveness is an earthly form of love, which as it is in Heaven has no form” (W-pI.186.14: 2). Another beautiful quote says, “We are asked by the Holy Spirit only to reflect Heaven’s Love through our willingness to forgive” (Wapnick).
The more I meditated on God’s Love via forgiveness, the more my drama seemed to melt away into the nothingness that is, and my ‘lesson’ gained crystallization. I realized that my repeated relationship ‘issue’ was helping me by providing the opportunity for healing through forgiveness. Not forgiveness of anything that was actually done to me, but simply for what I mistakenly thought was being done. But more than that, for the guilt I mistakenly thought that was within me, and I was now ready to release.
The author Kenneth Wapnick writes: Turning away from love can never bring us peace, and the Holy Spirit has provided the opportunities in our various relationships that we may retrace our ego’s steps of separation, and return to the love that unites us all as one family in God. When we find the lesson too difficult to learn, Jesus patiently waits with us until we are ready to take the next step.
It is through the gentle love we feel from him that we know we are forgiven, and in that forgiveness we eventually find the strength to extend this forgiving love from Jesus to others and to ourselves.
Thank you Heavenly Father for your tremendous Love, and the means by which we may learn your loving lessons within this illusion. But thank you mostly for the fact that ultimately there are no lessons to learn because there is nothing to ever really forgive!
Amen-
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